DDBA 8531 Week 11 Veto Holder Seminar Paper Example

Four Ways to Say No to Smart Water Meters: A Seminar Paper Arguing an Advanced Metering Proposal to Every Veto Holder at a Mid-Sized Water Utility and Predicting How the Group Will Settle Its Disagreement

Student Name

Walden University

DDBA 8531: Seminar in B2B Marketing

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Four Ways to Say No to Smart Water Meters: A Seminar Paper Arguing an Advanced Metering Proposal to Every Veto Holder at a Mid-Sized Water Utility and Predicting How the Group Will Settle Its Disagreement

Thesis

A composite municipal water utility serving about 48,000 metered connections in a Mountain West city is considering advanced metering infrastructure: meters that record hourly use and transmit readings over a radio network, replacing manual monthly reads. The utility's capital plan sets aside $14.6 million over three years. This paper argues that the utility will approve advanced metering if a vendor's proposal answers engineering on meter accuracy, finance on the effect on customer rates, information security on how data is handled and the elected board on customer privacy. A proposal that answers three of the four will fail, because each can stop the purchase.

Literature

In the model Webster and Wind (1972) built, each member of a buying center judges a purchase by personal criteria and brings a different kind of influence to the table. Robinson et al. (1967) classified purchases by novelty, and this is a new task for the utility, which has never bought a networked metering system; new tasks draw in more participants and more search. Johnston and Bonoma (1981) found that larger, more complex purchases involve more departments and more levels of hierarchy. Sheth (1973) proposed that when buying center members disagree, the group resolves conflict through problem solving, persuasion, bargaining or politicking, with problem solving most likely when members share goals and disagree about facts. Relationship research adds a further consideration: Poppo and Zenger (2002) found that contracts and relational governance work best together, which matters for a fifteen-year metering system whose service will outlast any single contract term.

The Account

Board minutes from 2025 show the utility's engineering division presenting advanced metering as a way to detect leaks and reduce water lost between the treatment plant and customers, which the utility's water audit estimates at 14 percent of production. The finance director presented the capital plan and noted that the purchase would be funded by revenue bonds repaid from rates. The request for proposals, published in January 2026, requires compliance with the utility's information security policy and asks vendors to describe how customer data is stored and shared. Public comment at two board meetings included residents' concerns that hourly readings would reveal when they are home.

Engineering: Meter Accuracy

The engineering manager's test is whether new meters measure accurately across flow rates, especially at the low flows where aging mechanical meters under-register. The evidence that answers it is independent test data showing accuracy within the American Water Works Association's standard ranges, and a pilot of 500 meters comparing readings with calibrated test meters. A remaining objection is battery life, since meter batteries must last fifteen to twenty years; the proposal should offer warranty terms that match.

Finance: Rate Impact

The finance director's test is the effect on customer bills. The evidence must come from the utility's own capital plan, not from vendor marketing. The plan shows debt service of about $1.1 million a year on the bonds. Savings come from reduced meter reading labor, about $620,000 a year, and from revenue recovered through more accurate meters and earlier leak detection, estimated by engineering at $480,000 to $700,000 a year. If savings reach the midpoint, the rate impact is close to zero. The remaining objection is uncertainty in recovered revenue, which the proposal should address with a pilot-based estimate.

Information Security: Data Handling

The information security manager's test is whether the radio network and the data platform create new routes into utility systems, and where customer data is stored. The evidence is an independent security assessment of the vendor's system, network segmentation separating metering from operational control systems and data storage within the United States under the utility's control. The likely remaining objection concerns the vendor's remote access for support, which the proposal should limit to scheduled, logged sessions.

The Board: Customer Privacy

The elected board's test is whether residents will accept the system. Board members heard public concerns that hourly data could show daily routines. The evidence that answers them is a written data policy: hourly data used only for billing, leak alerts and system planning; no sharing with third parties without a court order or customer consent; retention limited to a set period; and an option for customers to view their own data. The objection that will remain is distrust of any data collection, which no policy fully answers; a public meeting before approval would let the board show it heard residents.

Prediction

Sheth's model suggests the resolution mode depends on whether disagreements concern facts or goals. Engineering and finance disagree mostly about facts, how much revenue accurate meters will recover, so problem solving through a pilot is the likely mode between them. The board's privacy concern is closer to a disagreement about values, and Sheth's model predicts persuasion or bargaining there: the board is likely to approve the purchase with conditions written into the data policy. The vendor most likely to win is the one whose proposal makes those conditions easy to adopt.

What a Vendor Should Do Now

A vendor reading this analysis should meet each veto holder before submitting its proposal: the engineering manager about a pilot, the finance director about the savings model, the security manager about the assessment and, through public channels, the board about the data policy.

Limits

The paper relies on public documents and cannot observe discussions outside meetings. The rate estimate depends on engineering's revenue recovery figures, which a pilot may revise. The prediction is a reasoned expectation, not a certainty.

Conclusion

The account will be won by answering all four tests in the terms each veto holder uses. A strong product with a weak privacy answer will lose to an adequate product with a strong one.

References

Johnston, W. J., & Bonoma, T. V. (1981). The buying center: Structure and interaction patterns. Journal of Marketing, 45(3), 143-156. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224298104500312

Poppo, L., & Zenger, T. (2002). Do formal contracts and relational governance function as substitutes or complements? Strategic Management Journal, 23(8), 707-725. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.249

Robinson, P. J., Faris, C. W., & Wind, Y. (1967). Industrial buying and creative marketing. Allyn and Bacon.

Sheth, J. N. (1973). A model of industrial buyer behavior. Journal of Marketing, 37(4), 50-56. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224297303700408

Webster, F. E., Jr., & Wind, Y. (1972). A general model for understanding organizational buying behavior. Journal of Marketing, 36(2), 12-19. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224297203600204