University of Minnesota - UMN Executive Leadership Insights
Winning Strategies
Book

Winning Strategies

Secrets to Clinching Multimillion-Dollar Deals

Anirban Dutta and Hetzel W. Folden
Wiley, 2010
Buy book or audiobook

Read or listen offline

Amazon Kindle
  • 0.5×
  • 0.75×
  • 1×
  • 1.25×
  • 1.5×
  • 1.75×
1×

Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Applicable

Recommendation

Closing any sale is a challenge, but finalizing a multimillion-dollar outsourcing contract is a truly formidable task. Business at this level requires “Big Deal” expertise. In this instructive book, Anirban Dutta and Hetzel W. Folden leverage their vast experience in winning information technology (IT) outsourcing deals – many worth upward of $50 million – to explain the entire process in depth. Though Satyam Computer Services, the authors’ former employer, became known as “the Enron of India” after its 2009 fraud debacle, Dutta and Folden weren’t involved in the company’s misdeeds, and their deal-making proficiency remains solid. Indeed, it comes through loud and clear in this insider’s guide to large outsourcing deals. Readers will have to wade through some industry jargon to get to the book’s core themes, but getAbstract believes that IT professionals, commercial deal makers and anyone interested in the dynamics of deal making will benefit from the authors’ sage advice.

Summary

“Big Deals” in the 21st Century

Globalization is reshaping how people do business, as journalist Thomas Friedman explained in The World Is Flat. All companies want to be more productive, and that requires “optimization” of their “supply-chain cycle.” Thus, outsourcing to lower-cost, more efficient suppliers across the globe has become an exploding trend, and many nations have transformed themselves to meet the demand. India, for instance, has developed a thriving information technology (IT) services sector, with well-trained software engineers.

Big Deals, or contracts worth $50 million or more, can turn an average outsourcing company into a truly great firm with skyrocketing revenue. However, designing a Big Deal requires management skills “beyond hard work and strategic aptitude.” You must also understand how to manage corporate politics to accomplish your goals. When considering any Big Deal, think carefully about the three types of stakeholders who will determine its success:

  1. “The customer” – Several factors influence whether a client company will ultimately award you a contract: its “executive commitment, clear strategy and ...

About the Authors

Anirban Dutta has been involved in closing numerous $50 million deals. He is a director of the Computer Sciences Corporation, where Hetzel W. Folden is vice president.

Comment on this summary