Full name

Use the same name all week — it is how your submissions are matched. Each export names its own file from it, for example 1-muchson-day1-l1-diagnostic.

Route 2 · Level 2 · Application

Put figures and motives on the re-tender

Materi B · Level 2 · Application · 60 min

What decides a purchase, and how to put figures on it

Seven short cards (58 min of reading and exploring, the rest is discussion). The cost explorer and the buying committee map come back in Task 2 with the Kessler data.

What decides a B2B IT purchase

10 min

Buyers weigh price, trust, risk and benefit, and they weigh risk more heavily than the invoice suggests.

In plain words

When a company buys IT it weighs four things: price (the total cost, not just the headline), trust (can this supplier deliver?), risk (what could go wrong?) and benefit (what do we gain?). People feel a loss about twice as strongly as a gain of the same size, so risk often counts for more than price.

Why it matters

That is why the cheapest offer does not always win, and why many deals end with “let's wait” instead of a decision. Waiting feels safer to a buyer who is afraid of making a mistake.

How to read the picture below

Use the two sliders to set how much Offer X saves and how big its security gap is, and watch the scale tip. Then press “Weight losses ×2”: the same risk now weighs double, and the scale often swings towards the safer Offer Y. The blocks are just units, not euros.

Decision scale

Price saving of X: 3

Security gap of X: 3

What this showsThe pans balance. The blocks are units for illustration, not euros. Exploratory · not graded

Two generic offers: X is cheaper and less secure, Y is pricier and more secure.

Price means total cost, not the headline (see B4). Trust: ability, benevolence, integrity (Mayer et al. 1995); commitment-trust (Morgan & Hunt 1994).
(Bauer 1960): buyers act to reduce perceived risk. Typical risks in IT projects (practitioner categories): performance, financial, time, security/compliance, and the sponsor's personal or political risk.
Benefit: customer value propositions (Anderson, Narus & van Rossum 2006): all benefits vs favourable points of difference vs resonating focus (the few points that matter most to this customer).
(Kahneman & Tversky 1979) and (Samuelson & Zeckhauser 1988) explain why “postpone” is a competitor.
Dixon & McKenna (2022), The Effect, analysing 2.5 million sales conversations: 40–60% of qualified deals end in “no decision”; of those, 44% reflect a preference for the status quo and 56% reflect fear of making a mistake.

How to decide when this comes up in the task

“Price” means total cost, not the headline number (see B4).
A cheaper offer is not automatically the better one: buyers act to reduce , and a loss weighs more than an equal gain.
“Postpone” is a competitor. In the Dixon & McKenna analysis, 40–60% of qualified deals end in no decision, and most of those reflect fear of making a mistake.

The buying centre

9 min

One buyer never decides alone: the is the customer.

In plain words

In a company nobody buys alone. A group decides together: the people who will use the system, people who advise, the purchasing department, the boss who signs, and people who control who gets access. In a German mid-sized company that often means the managing director, procurement, the head of IT, the data protection officer and sometimes the works council.

Why it matters

Talk to only one person and you miss what the others need. Each role asks a different question: procurement wants the total cost, the head of IT worries about technical risk.

How to read the picture below

Click each role on the map to see the question it typically asks. In the donut chart, click the slices: only 17% of buying time is spent meeting suppliers. Most of the decision happens while you are not in the room.

Buying committee map

What this showsGeschäftsführer (managing director) · Decider

Typical question (illustrative): “Is this spend justified, and who carries the risk if it goes wrong?”

Roles only. Select a role for its typical question. Task 2 reuses this MotiveMap with the Kessler roles.

How buying time is spent (Gartner 2017)

What this shows"Meeting suppliers" is the only slice where you're in the room — and it's just 17% of buying time. The other 83% (research, internal alignment) happens without you.

Webster & Wind (1972): users, influencers, buyers, deciders, gatekeepers.
Gartner (2017 Digital B2B Buyer Survey, n = 750): the median for a complex solution has 6–10 decision makers, each with 4–5 pieces of independently gathered information.
German (mid-sized companies) reality: (managing director) decides personally on larger spend; (procurement) enforces process (a minimum number of offers is company policy, a here); (head of IT) is the technical voice; the (data protection officer) reviews data processing (, Art. 28); the (works council) has on systems that can monitor employee behaviour (§ 87(1) no. 6 BetrVG).

How to decide when this comes up in the task

Name the role by what it does in the purchase (user, influencer, buyer, , ), not by job title.
Each role asks a different question. enforces the process and needs the total cost; the head of IT carries the technical and personal risk; the decides larger spend.
Do not equate role with motive: any role can voice any motive (see B3).

Four purchase motives

9 min

Motives are hypotheses about the buyer, and you test them by asking.

In plain words

Behind every purchase there is a reason, a motive. There are four: Security (avoid a loss or a failure), Efficiency (save effort or money), Innovation (get something you do not have yet) and Status (look good, keep up with peers). You cannot see a motive directly; you guess it from what people say, then check it by asking.

Why it matters

Pitch savings to someone who mainly worries about security and you miss them. The job title does not tell you the motive either: a head of IT can care about cost, a director about security.

How to read the picture below

Click a motive on the compass. You see what people with that motive tend to say, and what kind of proof convinces them. Notice which motive sits opposite: the same person can voice both at different moments.

Motive compass

What this showsSecurity (Avoid loss or failure) sits opposite Innovation on the compass. The same buyer can voice both at different moments, which is why a motive is a hypothesis to test against what they say next, not a label you fix once.

Security · Avoid loss or failure.

Listen for (generic examples)

“What happens if it goes down?”
“Who is accountable when this fails?”
“We cannot afford a repeat.”

What proves it

A certificate (for example ISO/IEC 27001)
Monitoring hours and response terms
Incident history

Select a motive to see what to listen for and what proves it.

Security (avoid loss or failure) · Efficiency (less effort or cost per outcome) · Innovation (a capability the buyer does not yet have) · Status (reputation, legitimacy, peer comparison).
Any role can voice any motive; roles tend to weight them differently. Do not equate role with motive.

Security has become institutional in Germany

The German implementation act has been in force since 6 December 2025; roughly 29,500 entities fall under supervision; supply-chain security is a named measure (Directive (EU) 2022/2555, Art. 21(2)(d)); management bodies must approve and oversee the measures and can be held liable (Art. 20). certification is a common way to evidence it. (Sources: BSI press release of 5 Dec 2025; Directive (EU) 2022/2555.)

Motives at a glance
Motive	Listen for	What proves it
Security	“What happens if it goes down?”	A certificate (for example )
Efficiency	“What does it cost in total?”	A total-cost calculation over the term
Innovation	“Can we get this data live?”	A roadmap
Status	“Who else is using this?”	Reference customers

How to decide when this comes up in the task

Read a statement for what the speaker wants to avoid, save, gain or be seen as: avoid loss or failure → Security; less effort or cost per outcome → Efficiency; a capability not yet held → Innovation; reputation and peer comparison → Status.
Do not equate role with motive: the head of IT can voice Efficiency, and a managing director can voice Security. Choose from the wording of the statement, not from the job title.
A motive is only addressed if an offer has something that proves it. A motive with no matching feature in either offer is a gap to name, not one to hide.

Quantify the choice

12 min

A lower headline price can cost more in total, and a risk figure is an , not a budget line.

In plain words

To compare two offers fairly, add up everything they cost over the whole contract: fees, one-time setup, the customer's own staff time, and running costs. This total is the . An offer that looks cheaper on the price tag can turn out more expensive overall.

Why it matters

Buyers often look at only one budget line. Showing the full cost lets them compare properly. A risk can also be put into a number (), but that number is an average, not a bill, so it stays out of the cash total.

How to read the picture below

Switch cost items on and off and watch the bars for Offer X and Offer Y. Adding makes them equal; adding internal effort makes Y cheaper. Tick the expected-loss box to see how a risk becomes a yearly figure. Further down, the worked example builds a full three-year total line by line: that is exactly the method Task 2 asks for.

Cost explorer

Cost layers

Fees(always on)Onboarding (X only)Internal effort (X only): 20 h × €80

Offer X · cash total, contract term

€90,000

Offer Y · cash total, contract term

€96,000

What this showsOffer X is now €6,000 cheaper in cash terms than Offer Y, over the contract term.

Show the expected-loss formula (non-cash)

Alpenwerk data (). Task 2 reuses this TcoStack with the Kessler offers.

Total cost over the term: TCO(3y) = fees + one-time transition + internal effort + variable service costs. Watch units: convert days → hours → euros, and state whether a number is per year or per term.
Worked example (Alpenwerk GmbH, ): Offer X: fees €90,000 + €6,000 = €96,000. Offer Y: €96,000, no onboarding. Tied. Add Alpenwerk's internal effort for X (20 h × €80 = €1,600): X = €97,600, Y is €1,600 cheaper.
Risk exposure: ALE = SLE × ARO (single-loss expectancy × annual rate of occurrence), a classic quantitative risk formula. Example: €150,000 × 0.04 = €6,000 per year. is an , not a cash outlay: it appears on no budget line. Label every input measured or assumed.
Budget lines: buyers often face a on one line (for example recurring IT fees) while and ad-hoc costs sit on other lines. The cheapest offer on the capped line is not necessarily the cheapest in total (practitioner observation).

Worked example · the full three-year build-up

Alpenwerk GmbH again, now with every line counted over a three-year term. All figures are a Case assumption. It is the method you need in Task 2, on different numbers.

Offer X · annual fee €30,000 · onboarding 5 person-days at €1,200 per day · Alpenwerk's own effort 2.5 working days at 8 h/day, internal rate €80 per hour · about 10 support hours a year at €150 per hour (time & material)

Offer X over three years
Line	Per year or once?	How it is counted	Over 3 years
Fees	Per year	3 years × €30,000	€90,000
	Once · day rate	5 person-days × €1,200 per day (days × day rate, no hours needed)	€6,000
Own effort	Once · hourly rate	2.5 days × 8 h = 20 h, then 20 h × €80	€1,600
Support hours	Per year · hourly rate	10 h × €150 × 3 years	€4,500
Total		90,000 + 6,000 + 1,600 + 4,500	€102,100

Offer Y · annual fee €32,000 · no onboarding · 15 support hours a year included

Offer Y over three years
Line	Per year or once?	How it is counted	Over 3 years
Fees	Per year	3 years × €32,000	€96,000
Support hours	Included	10 h a year is within the 15 h included, so nothing extra	€0
Total		96,000 + 0	€96,000

Difference: X − Y = 102,100 − 96,000 = €6,100 more for X over three years.
Against a : if Alpenwerk's is capped at €31,000 per year, Y's fee is 32,000 − 31,000 = €1,000 per year over it. Compare the yearly fee with the yearly cap, not the €96,000 total.
: €150,000. with X 0.04, so 0.04 × 150,000 = €6,000 per year; ARO with Y 0.02, so ALE €3,000 per year. Y reduces expected loss by 6,000 − 3,000 = €3,000 per year, × 3 years = €9,000 over the term. It stays out of the cash totals above.

Benchmarks
IBM / Ponemon, Cost of a Data Breach Report 2025	2025	2024
Germany, average breach	€3.87M	€4.9M
Global, average breach	US$4.44M	—
German industrial companies	€6.67M	€9.34M

Benchmarks are context, not inputs

These are averages across breached organisations in IBM's sample; a single-loss estimate for a mid-sized plant must state its own scale assumption.

How to decide when this comes up in the task

Compute total cost over the term, not the headline: fees + one-time transition + internal effort + variable service costs. Convert days → hours → euros and state whether a number is per year or per term.
Per year or once? Anything that recurs (an annual fee, support hours per year) is multiplied by the number of years in the term. A cost (onboarding, a review) is counted once, never multiplied by the term.
Match the unit of the rate. A day rate multiplies days directly. An hourly rate needs hours first: days × hours per day, then × the hourly rate.
Hours inside an offer's included allowance cost nothing extra: if the expected hours per year are within the hours included, that line is €0.
The cheapest offer on a capped budget line is not necessarily the cheapest in total; a applies to the line it sits on, per year. Compare like with like: a yearly fee against a yearly cap, never a three-year total against a yearly cap.
Expected loss (ALE = × ) is an expected value, not cash: keep it out of the cash total and label each input measured or assumed.
ALE is per year, because ARO is a rate per year. The expected-loss reduction of one offer over another is (ALE of the first − ALE of the second) × the years in the term.
Benchmarks (IBM / Ponemon) are context, not inputs: a single-loss estimate for a mid-sized plant must state its own scale assumption.

What a calculation cannot tell you

6 min

One customer is an anecdote, not a .

In plain words

Kessler is one customer, and one customer is a story, not a statistic. To say something like “most customers leave after ” you need to look at many customers. That share across the whole group is the base rate.

Why it matters

It is tempting to treat one vivid case as proof. In Task 2 some questions simply cannot be answered from one customer's data, and saying so honestly is the right answer, not a failure.

How to read the picture below

The filled dot on the left is the one customer we actually looked at. The 30 dashed circles on the right are the other customers nobody has checked. You cannot read a rate from one dot.

One observation

Tversky & Kahneman (1971): belief in the , i.e. small samples are treated as if they were representative.
Separate measured from assumed inputs. If a number needs a sample you do not have, “cannot be calculated from this data” is the correct answer.
Form for stating a limit (form only): “This figure holds for ___ under ___. It does not tell us ___ because ___.”

How to decide when this comes up in the task

Separate measured from assumed inputs before you calculate.
If a number needs a sample you do not have, “cannot be calculated from this data” is the correct answer, not a shortfall.
State a limit in this form: “This figure holds for ___ under ___. It does not tell us ___ because ___.”

First moves to influence behaviour

10 min

Influence starts with questions and ends with lower risk for the buyer.

In plain words

Once you understand the customer, how do you actually move them? Six steps: look at the facts, guess their motive, ask good questions, recommend something clear, take away their risk, and keep in touch after . is a way of asking questions that helps the customer see what their problem costs them. is a way of helping a hesitant buyer finally decide.

Why it matters

Pushing harder rarely works. Buyers move when their questions are answered and their fear of a wrong choice gets smaller, for example through a phase or an .

How to read the picture below

Click each step of the ladder to read what it means in practice. The last step, Review, is what Task 2 calls “Care after go-live”.

Influence ladder

Step 1 of 6

Observe

Read the records and separate observation from interpretation (A6). Influence starts from what the file shows.

Six clickable steps.

(Rackham 1988): Situation, Problem, Implication, Need-payoff questions; in large, long-cycle sales, Implication and Need-payoff questions were the ones associated with success (Huthwaite study, commonly cited as about 35,000 calls).
(Dixon & McKenna 2022): Judge the indecision, Offer a recommendation, Limit exploration, Take risk off the table (e.g. phase, , reference call, fixed-price phase 1).
Post- levers used in customer-success practice (no single standard): a named account owner, value-realisation reviews at 30/90/180 days, a (QBR), a (usage, contacts, tickets). In Task 2 this is the lever “Care after go-live”.

How to decide when this comes up in the task

Match the first move to the buyer's position: ask questions when the motive is a hypothesis; take risk off the table when the buyer fears a mistake; keep contact after go-live when the weak point is continuity.
The lever “Care after go-live” acts on the relationship after go-live (named owner, reviews, , ). It does not act on price or on a security gap.

Field method for Task 2

2 min

Four steps, fifteen minutes: Read the tables → Calculate → Choose → State the limit.

In plain words

A short recipe for Task 2. Read the three tables, do the calculations, choose an offer and back it with a number, then say honestly what your choice does not fix and what the data cannot tell you.

Why it matters

You have 15 minutes. The last step is the one people skip, and it is the one that shows you took B5 on board.

Time box: 15 minutes.

How to decide when this comes up in the task

Read the three tables first, then calculate F1–F5, read the four motives, choose an offer citing a figure, and finish by naming what the choice does not fix and what the data cannot answer.

References · Materi B (16)

Anderson, J. C., Narus, J. A., & van Rossum, W. (2006). Customer value propositions in business markets. Harvard Business Review, 84(3), 90–99.
Bauer, R. A. (1960). Consumer behavior as risk taking. In R. S. Hancock (Ed.), Dynamic Marketing for a Changing World (pp. 389–398). American Marketing Association.
Dixon, M., & McKenna, T. (2022). The JOLT Effect. Portfolio.
Gartner (2017). Digital B2B Buyer Survey (n = 750), as reported in Gartner buyer-enablement materials.
IBM / Ponemon Institute (2025). Cost of a Data Breach Report 2025.
Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1979). Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk. Econometrica, 47(2), 263–291.
Mayer, R. C., Davis, J. H., & Schoorman, F. D. (1995). An integrative model of organizational trust. Academy of Management Review, 20(3), 709–734.
Morgan, R. M., & Hunt, S. D. (1994). The commitment-trust theory of relationship marketing. Journal of Marketing, 58(3), 20–38.
Rackham, N. (1988). SPIN Selling. McGraw-Hill.
Samuelson, W., & Zeckhauser, R. (1988). Status quo bias in decision making. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 1(1), 7–59.
Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1971). Belief in the law of small numbers. Psychological Bulletin, 76(2), 105–110.
Webster, F. E., & Wind, Y. (1972). A general model for understanding organizational buying behavior. Journal of Marketing, 36(2), 12–19.
Directive (EU) 2022/2555 (NIS2), Art. 20 and Art. 21(2)(d).
BSI press release, 5 Dec 2025 (NIS2 implementation act in force 6 Dec 2025).
Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR), Art. 5(1)(c),(e), 6(1)(f), 21(2)–(3), 28, Recital 47.
§ 87(1) no. 6 BetrVG (Betriebsverfassungsgesetz).

Task 2 · Level 2 · 15 min

Task 2 · Calculation Note · the Kessler re-tender

Level 2 shows that no configuration wins on every axis.

Premise · from your Task 1 verdict

No verdict filed in Task 1 yet. — this is a suggestion, not a gate. You can work through Task 2 first.

The situation

Case assumption

Kessler tenders (, formal tender) a three-year & Operations service for the Azure environment TechSolutions built. Two offers arrive. Kessler's buying committee has four voices. You prepare the calculation note the account team takes into the committee meeting. Kessler's for IT services is capped at €48,000 per year. costs and hours booked by IT sit on other budget lines.

Block 2.1 · Read the tables

FIND IT· Route 2 → Task 2 → “Offer sheet”, “Cost lines”, “Risk table”. Nothing is asked here; you use these three tables in Blocks 2.3 to 2.5.

Draws on

Offer sheet (per year unless stated)

	Offer A · NordByte IT	Offer B · TechSolutions
Annual fee	€44,000	€50,000
Term / notice	3 years / 6 months	3 years / 6 months
Monitoring	Business hours (8×5)	24×7
Incident response	Time & material at €165/h	40 h/year included, then €140/h
ISO/IEC 27001 certificate	Not certified	Certified
Advisory / data-platform roadmap	Not included	Not included

Cost lines (Kessler's own costs, Case assumption)

Line	Value
Kessler internal IT cost rate	€85 per hour
Offer A onboarding (NordByte environment discovery, charged separately)	10 person-days at €1,100 per day
Offer A documentation gap review (Kessler IT lead time)	3 working days at 8 h/day
Expected incident-response workload (both offers)	30 h per year
Fee-line cap (IT services)	€48,000 per year

Risk table (Case assumption · assumed)

	Value · assumed
Single-loss expectancy, ransomware stopping production IT (3 days downtime + recovery)	€420,000 · assumed
ARO with Offer A (8×5 monitoring, response on request)	0.05 per year · assumed
ARO with Offer B (24×7 monitoring, response included)	0.03 per year · assumed

Not an IBM figure; stated scale: 320-employee manufacturer. Averages such as IBM's are context. This single-loss figure is scaled to Kessler.

Block 2.2 · Cost explorer

EXPLORATORY

FIND IT· Route 2 → Task 2 → “Cost explorer” → tick the layers one at a time. Not graded and not exported; the picture is the feedback.

Draws on

Cost layers

Fees(always on)Onboarding + documentation review (A only)Expected incident hoursExpected loss (ALE, non-cash)· non-cash

Offer A · cash total, three-year term

€132,000

Offer B · cash total, three-year term

€150,000

What this showsOffer A is now €18,000 cheaper in cash terms than Offer B, over the three-year term.

LOCKEDCare after go-live (Offer B add-on)Unlocks after you file your Task 1 verdict.

LOCKEDApply to all TechSolutions customersNeeds more than one observed customer. Kessler is one.

Block 2.3 · Figures

OBJECTIVE

FIND IT· Route 2 → Task 2 → “Offer sheet” and “Cost lines”. Answer in the fields below.

Analyse in the app. Write your result in the answer area below.

Draws on

Every number you need is printed in the three tables of . The method is taught in Materi B4, with a worked example on Alpenwerk's numbers. Try each question yourself first. If you get stuck, two helps sit under every question: “Show the formula” gives the formula in words, and “Show where the numbers are” lists the exact rows it uses (click a row to jump to it). Then type the numbers into the calculator.

F1 · Offer B, annual fee over the cap

By how much does Offer B's annual fee exceed the ? (€ per year)

Accepts 159890, 159,890, 159.890, 159.890,00 or € 159 890.

F2 · Offer A, onboarding cost

What does Offer A's cost? (€)

Accepts 159890, 159,890, 159.890, 159.890,00 or € 159 890.

F3 · Offer A, three-year cash total

Three-year cash total for Offer A: fees + + documentation review (internal cost) + expected incident hours at . (€)

Accepts 159890, 159,890, 159.890, 159.890,00 or € 159 890.

F4 · Offer A minus Offer B, three-year cash

How much more does Offer A cost than Offer B over three years in cash? Offer B: fees only, since 30 h is within the 40 h included. (€, positive number)

Accepts 159890, 159,890, 159.890, 159.890,00 or € 159 890.

F5 · Offer B, expected-loss reduction vs A

Over three years, by how much does Offer B reduce () compared with Offer A? (€)

Accepts 159890, 159,890, 159.890, 159.890,00 or € 159 890.

Checks requested: 0

Calculator

Type or tap. Units are yours to keep straight: hours × rate, per year × years.

= —

Block 2.5 · Your choice

JUDGED

FIND IT· Route 2 → Task 2 → “Cost explorer” and your Block 2.3 figures. Answer below.

Draws on

Recommendation

The offer you would take into the committee meeting.

Offer AOffer BOffer B + Care after go-live

Justification

Cite at least one figure from your own tables or answers above.

Figures citednone yet

What your choice does not fix JUDGED0 characters

Name a conflict that has two legitimate sides. The sentence must not resolve it. Frame: “Choosing ___ protects ___ but leaves ___ exposed. Side one has a claim: ___. Side two has a claim: ___.” At least 30 characters.

Block 2.6 · One question the data cannot answer

OBJECTIVE

FIND IT· Route 2 → Task 2 → “Offer sheet”, “Cost lines”, “Risk table” and “Cost explorer”. Answer below.

Draws on

Question 6

Using Kessler alone, estimate the share of TechSolutions' customers who would place a order within 24 months if Care after existed. Answer in one or two sentences.

Your calculation note is still missing:

Preview of your note

File name: 2-participant-day1-l2-calculation.html