The heat source was available; the year-round customer was not

## Find the assumption that turned a resource into a benefit

The heat-recovery proposal looked attractive because the source was present in an operation we understood. Its potential recipient was less thoroughly examined. In 2025, a proposed programme at one Vezquri operating site carried a ₹2.4 crore investment request based on useful customer demand throughout the year. Review supported the proposed use during four months. Demand for the other eight months had not been established. The investment model had moved from a potentially useful resource to an annual benefit without giving both sides of that relationship equal attention.

I do not regard seasonal demand as a reason to reject an idea automatically. A limited use can be valuable if the actual technical conditions, commercial terms and costs support it. The problem was that we were being asked to decide on a full-year proposition before the evidence supported that proposition. A resource does not become a realised customer benefit merely because an engineer can identify it. The recipient's needs, timing and willingness to participate are part of the business case. Those matters need their own owners rather than appearing as convenient assumptions beneath a well-developed supply account.

The project sponsor wanted to preserve the larger scope. Installing more capability, he argued, would make it easier to develop additional uses later. That argument deserved consideration. A business sometimes invests ahead of committed demand because waiting would foreclose an opportunity or make later work more expensive. I asked that this be presented as a decision about a future option, with the uncertainty and exposure stated. It should not be described as though the additional demand already existed. The board could then assess the actual proposition instead of approving one rationale while believing it was approving another.

The prospective customer could support a narrower period but could not commit the missing months. Commercial colleagues needed to understand that position without treating hesitation as an obstacle to be removed from the model. Qualified engineers retained assessment of the heat conditions and the proposed arrangement, while customer representatives retained authority over their own operations. My task was to bring those accounts into the same decision. I was not qualified to prescribe a technical configuration, and I could not make a customer's future use certain by asking for a more confident forecast.

## Give the narrower proposal its own commercial account

We retained the ₹31 lakh feasibility expense as the cost of work already undertaken. The original ₹2.4 crore programme was not approved on its stated assumptions. A ₹44 lakh bounded pilot was authorised instead, to examine the supported use more closely. I was careful about how that change was described. It was not the same programme delivered for less money. Its purpose and scope were narrower, and it left further technical and commercial questions open. Comparing the two amounts without that context would have created another misleading account while trying to correct the first.

The difference between an unapproved proposal and a smaller authorisation was not claimed as cash saved. That distinction can be unpopular because the subtraction is easy and the resulting number looks impressive. But the larger sum was a proposed commitment, not an expense already incurred and then recovered. The smaller programme also had its own cost and limitations. I wanted finance to show what had been spent, what was now authorised and what remained unapproved. Those categories gave the board a clearer view of exposure than a headline suggesting the organisation had somehow gained the difference as available cash.

A pilot also needs a precise account of what it can teach. The fact that it is smaller does not make its conclusions automatically reliable or transferable. A supported use in four months does not establish a year-round opportunity. A technically workable arrangement does not by itself settle commercial acceptance. We did not publish a quantified fuel displacement, emissions reduction or net return from this pilot because those outcomes had not been established. The next investment decision would need to return to the actual findings rather than treating the act of running a pilot as evidence that expansion should follow.

I also wanted the team to retain the disappointment associated with the narrower decision. Colleagues had invested time in a larger opportunity, and the change meant that some of the work would not lead immediately to the programme they had imagined. Describing every revision as an uncomplicated success would have hidden that cost. The business could recognise useful investigation while acknowledging that the original scope was not ready for approval. That is a healthier basis for future proposals than rewarding only the most optimistic account or pretending that a revised ambition leaves nobody with difficult consequences to manage.

## Keep the destination involved in the investment decision

The experience changed when I want the demand owner involved. If the recipient appears only after the supply-side case is largely complete, a tentative assumption can become embedded in the proposal's identity. Challenging it then feels like challenging months of accumulated work. Earlier participation does not remove uncertainty, but it makes the uncertainty part of the initial design of the decision. The team can distinguish a supported use, a plausible extension and an untested possibility before each is assigned the same weight in a financial model or presentation.

That participation should preserve the customer's freedom to say no or to limit its commitment. An operating supplier may see an attractive resource and reasonably want to develop it. The customer may have different production plans, investment priorities or practical constraints. A useful commercial relationship allows those differences to be stated without turning them into evidence of poor cooperation. The resulting proposal might be smaller or slower. It may also be more understandable, because both parties can see which obligation they are being asked to accept and which future possibility remains outside the agreement.

At enterprise level, I would ask whether similar assumptions sit elsewhere in the investment account. A shared facility may depend on another user's timetable. A service expansion may require a customer activity that has not been approved. A resource-based proposition may have a technically attractive source but no supported destination at the relevant time. These are not identical engineering problems, and they should not be handled by copying one pilot structure. They share a governance question: has the business distinguished the capability it could build from the use that makes building it worthwhile?

For a prospective board contribution, this is where my operating background is useful and where its limits matter. I can ask management to explain the dependencies, decision stages and retained costs. I should not replace the engineering assessment or negotiate customer terms from a committee seat. Directors need an account clear enough to assess the proposed commitment, together with access to appropriate expertise when the technical or contractual basis is material. The objective is a decision that can be understood and challenged, not a board that attempts to run the project itself.

I would not conclude that smaller is always wiser. There are situations in which an enterprise deliberately accepts demand uncertainty to create a future opportunity. The discipline is to name that decision honestly and assess its consequences on that basis. In our case, the supported next step was a bounded pilot, with the feasibility cost retained and the larger programme left unapproved. The useful lesson was not a preference for pilots. It was that a resource and its destination must remain connected throughout the account, especially when an attractive source makes the destination seem too easy to assume.