I was once given two weeks to prepare a set of scripts for use at a dozen or more locations around the world. By following the scripts, unskilled staff would be able to migrate all user data from a variety of desktops and servers many with different architectures and operating systems to the strategic replacement desktops and servers, which would have a common architecture. Users would be able to access all their data files on their new PCs and servers using the latest versions of applications. A salesman had observed that the Buyer s incumbent Vendor was approaching data migration in different ways at different locations and that skilled staff were being used. He made an assumption that our company could undertake the work more cheaply using unskilled staff and standard scripts. He sent the Buyer three presentation foils which represented an offer to migrate all their global data at a very low, fixed price per desktop. I looked into the assumptions which underpinned our proposal to the Buyer and...