Paul approves a business case

For over two years now the drivers had been lobbying Paul to invest in a new type of vehicle. Although rather specialist in nature, they had seen that there was a growing market for the European Universal Saloon and furthermore, their main competitor - the British Ultimate Passenger Association - did not have it. In fact only a small local company boasted this car and their chief specialist driver of the vehicle was about to retire.

Moreover, the last two times that the National Hire Service had had its performance reviewed by external assessors - a process that all car hire companies underwent to ensure that a safe service was being provided to the public - they had been criticized for not having the European Universal Saloon saying that it made a nonsense of Paul's repeated claim that they were the leading provider of 'specialist luxury long-haul family transportation'.

Although it was quite an expensive car, the drivers had calculated that the income it would generate would more than pay for itself inside two years and they wrote a business case for Paul to this effect. After a few revisions, whereby their original figures had been massaged out of all recognition by Paul and his Procurement Advisory Team, the drivers were pleasantly surprised to find that the idea had been approved. Moreover, the income it was due to generate was, in the new revamped business case, going to be used for other much needed improvements. Even more excitingly the company was also going to buy some very rare glass for strengthening the windscreens on its sports cars - the branded 'Superior Protection Y' glass was eagerly awaited.

All these new acquisitions were voluably trumpeted around by Paul as an example of pro-active management. The drivers were happy with the extra services although in practice found that the Superior Protection Y glass made little difference. They waited and waited for the European Universal Saloon to arrive and were often told that the purchase order had been signed - but nothing came.

They visited Paul.

"Paul," they began. "You've invested the predicted profits from the European Universal Saloon business case in all these other acquisitions but the car itself hasn't arrived yet. What's going on?"

Paul took out an old envelope and started writing down figures.

"What are you doing?" they enquired.

"Seeing if the extra income you can generate from private use of the European Universal Saloon would fund us investing in it," he countered.

"But Paul! The business case went through ages ago. You've even spent most of the projected profits on other schemes. There's no point in trying to reinvent it on the back of an envelope now!"

But nevertheless they were tasked to go away and rewrite it. Which they did, and then they took it back to Paul.

He squirmed a bit but eventually conceded that there was indeed a case to be made for the purchase. The drivers looked happy.

They made arrangements for an opening ceremony. It became clear that the car iteslf would not have been shipped by the date set so they arranged for the supplier to lend them a demonstration model for the day. They adorned it with a large red ribbon and invited the press. Paul made short speech about how working together was driving up quality and innovation, cut the ribbon, ate some cake at the buffet and quickly left.

The drivers looked forward to using the new car: it could only be another couple of weeks before it arrived, surely?

Thus it was that they were not a little perturbed to find that some weeks later they received a form to fill out analysing the benefits of the car and comparing it to other models.

"Why?" they queried.

"Well, we can't sign the purchase order until that is done," replied Paul.

"What?!" They were aghast. "We thought that had been done before the Grand Opening."

"Oh no!" smiled Paul, touched by such naivity.