Room brief

What they will expect · August 2026

 Deck

Read this first

They are not buying a demo. They are hiring a counterpart.

A shortlist oral for an INGO federation is a procurement event with a fiduciary undertone. The Evaluation Committee already has your written bid. This hour is to see whether you understood their script, whether the system is configurable, and whether the people in the room will still be there after award.

What they expect to hear

  1. 01Their problem in their language — Trip ID, Budget Holder, Regional Offices, dual payment — not a category pitch.
  2. 02An honest line between the 60-minute proof and the production programme. They wrote that disclaimer. Repeat it.
  3. 03Configurability. They are entitled to change a rule in the room. Offer it before they ask.
  4. 04How a federation absorbs the system: Secretariat, six ROs, Member Associations. Pathfinder, not big-bang.
  5. 05Who stays. Oral team = delivery team. Implementation Integrity: it works when we leave.
  6. 06A commercial shape that matches the written bid. No new numbers from the floor.

What they expect to see

The prescribed walk

Maria, Victoria, James. Their IDs. Their vendors. Their timings.

A live rule change

Policy page. Departure hour or duplicate tolerance. Recalculate.

Budget Holder dignity

Victoria sees budget, flags and the missing pass. She can return.

The dual-payment hold

EUR 42 on the GTS invoice against Maria’s taxi.

A statement that closes

Barclays line on the same Trip ID. One exception held.

Time discipline

20 / 15 / 10 / 15 if they run the POC. 28 + 17 if they run the oral.

Likely seats

Procurement / chair

Cares. Comparability, time discipline, no substitution of the prescribed data, a clean commercial story, no bait.

Will ask. How do you stay inside the 60-minute POC if we also sit today? What is fixed-fee versus time? What happens if requirements move after award?

Play. Offer the clock. Repeat their own disclaimer: POC ≠ accepted process. Commercial ranges only if they are in the written proposal.

Global Finance

Cares. Dual payment, GL, budget, period close, TSP invoices, card statement, audit.

Will ask. Show the duplicate. Show the validation summary. How does this post to our finance system? Who owns exchange rates?

Play. James Wilson path. Do not invent an ERP name. Speak 'the finance system you designate in mobilisation'. Offer rate-source as configuration.

Budget Holder / programme

Cares. Time, fairness, not being a rubber stamp, not blocking staff in the field.

Will ask. What do I actually see? Can I return? What if the activity code is wrong?

Play. Victoria’s page: budget, flags, documents, return. Empathy for Maria in the field — mobile capture is for her, not for the vendor’s demo.

IT / Digital / Information security

Cares. Identity, hosting, data residency, roles, audit logs, integrations, exit.

Will ask. Where does data live? SSO? How do we get our data out? What is custom versus product?

Play. Honest: POC is a configured demonstration. Production architecture is a mobilisation deliverable. Residual capacity includes export and ownership. No hand-waving on residency — take it as an action if not in the written bid.

Regional Office voice

Cares. Will this work outside London. Language. Connectivity. Local TSP. Training load.

Will ask. Does everyone have to live in English? What if our TSP is not GTS? Who trains us?

Play. Vendor master is already regional. OCR already translated Spanish. Design for absorption — pathfinder RO, not big-bang. Training is role-based, not a three-day dump.

Legal / compliance / safeguarding-adjacent

Cares. Policy hard-stops, audit, who can see what, retention.

Will ask. Can a user override alcohol? Who sees a receipt with personal data? How long do we keep it?

Play. Alcohol is a violation, not a warning, in the configured proof. Overrides if any are role-bound and trailed. Retention is a policy parameter we set with them — we do not invent a number.

How the hour can go

Track A · Oral

45 minutes

28 minutes on the 17-slide deck. Live jumps into the POC. 17 minutes questions. Use this if they already sat the 60-minute evaluation, or if they asked for a shortlist presentation.

Track B · Prescribed POC

60 minutes

Their pack. 20 / 15 / 10 / 15. Do not force the oral on top. If they invite both, oral first only if the chair says so.

Sixty-minute run of show

  1. 0:00–1:00LeadClock and contract. Sixty minutes as you wrote them. Twenty, fifteen, ten, then your fifteen. We will not exceed. Interrupt us.
  2. 1:00–18:00SolutionScenario 1. Maria. New trip. TRP-2026-0001. Taxi OCR. Lunch and wine. Hosted dinner. Internet and laundry. Documents minus return. Per diem. Submit. Victoria returns. Attach. Approve.
  3. 18:00–20:00AllScenario 1 questions. If they want a rule change, do it now. Do not steal Scenario 2’s clock.
  4. 20:00–33:00SolutionScenario 2. James. GTS invoice — theirs if they hand it over. Vendor master. Match. Duplicate. Review. Revalidate. Summary.
  5. 33:00–35:00AllScenario 2 questions. Dual-payment is the likely probe. Stay on the forty-two euro line.
  6. 35:00–43:00SolutionScenario 3. Barclays feed. Allocate. Exception. Close. Audit.
  7. 43:00–45:00AllScenario 3 questions. Offer a rule variation if they have not yet asked.
  8. 45:00–60:00Lead + DeliveryOpen floor. Architecture, residency, plan, commercial — from the Q&A bank. Stop at 59:30.

Answers we will not invent

Is this the production system?

It is a configured proof against your prescribed data. Your pack says that does not accept the process. We agree. Production is mobilisation, federation design, integration and owners.

Lead

Can you change the per diem rule now?

Yes. Policy page. Departure cut-off, hosted meals, lunch value, reasonableness multiplier. Recalculate the open report. That is the point of configuration.

Solution

What if our finance system is X?

We integrate to the system you designate. The EMS owns Trip ID, policy and the audit trail. The finance system owns the books. Mapping is a mobilisation workstream, not a demo guess.

Delivery

How do you handle six Regional Offices and Member Associations?

One fiduciary bar, local absorption. Pathfinder RO first. Vendor masters and languages are already structured for the regions you listed. MAs are a political design question we will not flatten in a slide.

Delivery

What about data residency and confidentiality of receipts?

Production hosting, residency and retention are set with you in mobilisation and written into the contract. Role-based access and a full audit trail are non-negotiable in the design. We will not bluff a region today.

Delivery

How is this different from a major expense-platform vendor?

They sell a category. We walked your script, we design for a federation, and we stay after the invoice. If you need a product catalogue, they are excellent. If you need a counterpart who leaves residual capacity, that is us.

Lead

What does the first year cost?

We will not invent a number that is not in the written commercial. The shape is: mobilisation and spine, integrations, training and hypercare, then a support retainer. We prefer transparent packages to a blended day-rate fog.

Lead

Can staff use it on a bad connection in the field?

Mobile capture is designed for the traveller, not the office. Offline-tolerant receipt capture is a production requirement we will take in design. The POC shows the interaction; the field constraint is real and we treat it as such.

Solution

Who owns policy after you leave?

IPPF. Named policy owners, trained, with a change forum. If a rule still requires us, we failed Implementation Integrity.

Delivery

What if the evaluation committee wants to rerun scenario 1 from a blank trip?

We reset and walk it. That is why we built the script as a system, not a recording.

Solution

The week

  1. D-7Assign Lead, Solution, Delivery. Read this brief aloud together. Watch The Walk once.
  2. D-6Solution: two timed run-throughs of the 60-minute POC. One with a hostile rule-change.
  3. D-5Delivery: write the mobilisation one-pager from the actual proposal, not from memory.
  4. D-4Lead: commercial and legal lines — only numbers that are in the submitted bid.
  5. D-3Full 45-minute oral with a colleague playing a sceptical Regional Director.
  6. D-2Reset the POC. Seed Scenario 1 complete as a fallback. Confirm projector, accounts, offline copy.
  7. D-1Travel kit: this deck, film, live POC, PDF script, names of the committee if issued.
  8. DayArrive 40 minutes early. Load /pitch. Load /app. Mute notifications. Water. Pronounce Alta-montt.

Pronunciation: Alta-montt. Both T’s released. On-screen spelling remains Altamont. Do not open with our biography. Do not trash other bidders. Do not treat the POC as accepted process. Do not invent a price on the floor.