Who shall we call a wise person
A big factory was being built in Kerala and a grave problem arose during the construction of that plant. The problem was that a really heavy machine had to be placed at the bottom of a deep pit built in the plant, but the weight of the machine posed a challenge.
The machine arrived at the site but how to get it down in the 30 feet deep pit, had become a big problem!!
If not installed properly, both the foundation and the machine would suffer a lot.
Now, this was a time when cranes that could lift very heavy weights were not available everywhere. The ones available could probably lift the machine, but to land it in the deep pit was beyond their capacity.
Finally, the company constructing the plant gave up, and issued a tender to find a solution to this problem. As a result, a lot of people sent their offers to fit this machine in the pit. They thought that they would call for a crane and get the machine installed.
Accordingly, they asked for 10 to 15 lakh rupees to complete the work. But there was a gentleman among those people, who asked the company, "if the machine gets drenched in water, will there be any problem?"
The company replied that "it will not make any difference to the machine."
After that, he also filled the tender.
When all the offers were seen, that person had asked for only 5 lakh rupees for completing the work. So obviously, the job of setting up the machine was given to him.
But the strange thing was that this person refused to share how he would do this work, and only said that he had the skills and the right team to do it.
He just asked the company to tell him the date and time on which to do this work.
The day finally came. Every employee, manager, even the boss of the company and everyone around was very curious to know how that man would do this work! He had not even done any preparation on the site.
Well, on the decided time, a lot of trucks started reaching that site. All those trucks were loaded with ice slabs, and they were all being filled into the pit.
When the pit was completely filled with ice, they moved the machine and placed it atop the ice slabs. After this, a portable water pump was switched on and a pipe was inserted in the pit so that the water could be taken out. The ice melted, the water kept pouring out, and the machine started going down.
The work was completed within 4-5 hours and the total cost came to less than Rs.1 lakh.
The machine fit perfectly and the man made a profit of more than Rs.4 lakhs.
Business is actually a very interesting subject. Finding a simple solution to the problem is an art, which depends on the person's prudence, cleverness and practical understanding.
Simple solutions to even the most difficult problems can be found with the power of discretion. And this person proved it.
"It is prudent to use all one's capabilities to the best of their ability so as to achieve maximum results with the least investment."
