The European Company That Finally Raised Its Ambition
Friday 9 October — Art of Leadership (II) · Europe — the big-name hour
The table
The case
Subtitle: A fictional leadership case for discussion. Source: The owner's own case (Dražen Kapusta, 2026-09-13), verbatim — the eight questions are his
The invitation arrived through a customer they already served.
A European industrial group was preparing a common operating programme across several countries. Its procurement team wanted to know whether the company could support the wider organisation.
For years, the founder had hoped for an opportunity like this.
His business had built a strong reputation in specialised industrial software. Customers trusted the product and the engineers behind it. Revenue was healthy. Growth had been steady.
He forwarded the invitation to his leadership team.
By the next morning, they had identified six reasons why the contract might be too large.
They would need broader support coverage, stronger implementation capacity and partners in markets where they had little presence. The customer would expect clear answers about hosting, data access and continuity. Commercial negotiations would be more demanding than anything they had handled before.
Every concern was reasonable.
Then the head of engineering asked a question.
“If another company wins this, do we believe its product will be better than ours?”
The room went quiet.
“Possibly,” the founder said. “But probably not by much.”
“Then what exactly have we decided we are too small to do?”
The Size They Had Learned to Be
The company had grown around the founder’s judgement.
He knew the major customers. He approved unusual commitments. He could bring the right engineers into a difficult conversation and resolve a problem quickly.
That closeness had helped build the business.
It also shaped its ambitions.
The team assessed larger opportunities against its current organisation. If a contract required capabilities it did not already possess, it usually reduced the scope or joined as a subcontractor.
Over time, being a specialist supplier had become more than a commercial position. It had become an identity.
The founder was proud of the company’s independence. He also recognised that it often depended on larger partners to define which opportunities reached it.
The invitation gave him a reason to reconsider that arrangement.
What the Customer Actually Wanted
The first customer conversation was encouraging.
The group liked the product. It had seen the team solve a difficult operating problem in one business unit and wanted to explore using the same approach elsewhere.
It did not expect the supplier to own every part of the delivery infrastructure.
It did expect someone to be accountable.
Who would coordinate implementation across countries? Who would respond when an issue crossed the boundary between software, hosting and local integration? Could the customer retain meaningful control over its information and move between providers if its needs changed?
The founder had initially heard a request for a much larger version of his company.
The customer was asking for a coherent service backed by a credible organisation of capabilities.
That distinction opened possibilities.
It also raised the question of whether he was prepared to lead the wider relationship.
A Bigger Map
The team used AI to organise the customer’s requirements, compare potential markets and prepare an initial view of capability gaps.
The exercise helped distinguish what they already did well from what they would need to build, buy or obtain through partners.
Some requirements were unfamiliar but manageable. Others would materially change the business.
The AI-generated partner list looked promising until the team checked it. Several firms had relevant descriptions but no demonstrated capacity for the particular work. One appeared to compete directly for the same customer relationship.
They replaced broad profiles with conversations and evidence.
A hosting partner could meet part of the infrastructure requirement. An integration firm had people in two target markets. Another specialist could provide complementary functionality.
The company did not need to recreate all of them internally.
It did need to understand how their contributions would fit together, what they would cost and who would act when delivery became difficult.
The Tribe That Challenged the Ceiling
The founder brought the opportunity to a COTRUGLI COlab session.
He began cautiously.
“We are considering whether we should participate in a supporting role.”
An alumnus who had expanded a service business across Europe asked why.
The founder listed the gaps.
They spent the next hour separating three things: capabilities the company truly lacked, commitments it could organise with partners and decisions the founder had been reluctant to delegate.
That last category was uncomfortable.
One classmate knew him well enough to be direct.
“You want the company to grow beyond you, but you still describe yourself as the person who will personally make every important part work.”
At dinner, the discussion became more practical.
The alumni compared their first international contracts, including mistakes in staffing, partner selection and cash planning. Two offered relevant introductions. Another offered to challenge the proposed delivery model before it reached the customer.
Their shared history made the ambition discussable. The founder could admit what he did not know without having to defend the company’s competence.
He left with more confidence and a longer list of work.
The Opportunity They Would Decline
During preparation, a larger provider offered to include the company in its own proposal.
The arrangement would reduce the burden of leading the contract. It would also leave the company with a narrow role and limited access to the customer.
It was a respectable option.
Meanwhile, the leadership team developed a proposal to lead a phased deployment itself, supported by named partners. The first phase would establish delivery performance in a defined scope before expansion.
The customer would need to accept that approach. The company would need to invest before knowing the full commercial outcome.
There was also an attractive domestic project competing for the same people.
The founder could no longer speak about international ambition as an addition to everything else. It required choices about attention, capital and leadership.
Putting Their Own Name on the Proposal
On the evening before the internal decision, the founder reviewed the cover page.
For the first time, his company’s name appeared as the proposed lead for a programme of this scale.
He felt proud.
Then he turned to the operating plan.
The proposal had to be credible after the celebration of winning. It needed people who could make decisions without waiting for him, partners with clear obligations and a first phase the company could actually deliver.
He asked the team to return the next morning with their recommendation.
This time, the question would begin with the company they were prepared to build.
The CDayZ Leadership Challenge
You are the leadership team deciding how to pursue the European opportunity.
Choose whether to lead a phased proposal, participate under a larger provider or decline. Explain the capabilities, partnerships and leadership changes your choice requires.
Your ambition must be supported by a delivery model and explicit trade-offs.
Discussion Questions
The owner's "Eight Questions for the Room":
- What gives this company a credible right to compete?
- Which constraints are real, and which reflect the company’s current habits?
- Which capabilities should the company own?
- How should customer control influence the offer?
- What role should AI play in preparing and delivering the expansion?
- What must the founder change personally?
- How can the COTRUGLI tribe strengthen the company’s readiness?
- What would you commit to now, and what would you decline?
Identify the strengths that matter to the customer and the evidence supporting them.
What would need investment, partnership, delegation or a different way of organising work?
What could partners provide, and which responsibilities must remain clear to the customer regardless of who delivers them?
Consider data access, provider choice, continuity and the ability to change arrangements over time.
Which tasks can it accelerate, and where are direct evidence and accountable human judgement essential?
Which decisions and relationships need to move beyond him for the company to operate at the proposed scale?
Specify the peer challenge, introductions and practical support that would be most valuable.
Define the first phase, the resources it requires and the evidence needed before expanding further.
A Lesson for the Next COTRUGLI Generation
A company can become accustomed to competing below the level its capabilities might support.
Raising ambition requires leaders to examine that habit, understand what customers value and organise the people and partners needed to deliver at greater scale.
The COTRUGLI tribe can widen the founder’s field of experience and provide relationships through which a larger ambition becomes practical.
The invitation had arrived from outside.
The decision to grow into it had to come from within.
Your comment on this chapter
A question for the table, a disagreement, what you would have done. The case lead reads every comment; the ones the table takes up enter the chapter as questions from the room, with your name.