Fictional lab material prepared for the MS-4004 Copilot exercises. Not a real meeting.
Meeting: Tailwind Traders — annual pricing and service review Date: Wednesday 2026-03-11, 14:00–14:47 ET Recorded by: Microsoft Teams Attendees: Miriam Graham (TWT, VP Supply Chain) · Lidia Holloway (TWT, Procurement Manager) · Nestor Wilke (TWT, Director Distribution Operations) · Lynne Robbins (Canada Post, Sales Manager) · Account Executive (Canada Post) Apologies: Isaiah Langer (TWT, Branch Manager Calgary)
[14:00:12] Lidia Holloway: Let's start, Miriam said she'd be five minutes behind. Nestor, you're on mute.
[14:00:31] Nestor Wilke: Sorry. Can everyone see the deck? Good.
[14:00:44] Account Executive: Before we go through it — Lidia, you asked for a written proposal and a benchmark. Both are in the pack I sent Friday. I want to start with the part you'll like least.
[14:01:02] Lidia Holloway: That's a new approach.
[14:01:09] Account Executive: Last year we ran 94.8% on-time against your 95% requirement. Two months clearly missed — July at 91.3 and December at 92.7. And Calgary was below target in all twelve months, between 86.7 and 92.1.
[14:01:38] Nestor Wilke: That's the number I've been putting in my supplier review since August. Thank you for saying it out loud.
[14:01:52] Lidia Holloway: So what's the cause?
[14:01:57] Account Executive: I don't know yet, and I'm not going to guess in this meeting. What I can tell you is what the data rules out — it isn't volume. Mississauga runs nearly twice Calgary's parcels at the best on-time rate in the network.
[14:02:24] Lidia Holloway: Then when will you know?
[14:02:29] Account Executive: We're proposing a Service Recovery Plan on Calgary — root cause investigation, remediation, ninety days of monitored recovery. It's no charge where we're below the agreed threshold, so it isn't part of the commercial conversation. I'll have findings to Nestor by 30 April.
[14:02:58] Nestor Wilke: April works. I'd want the weekly numbers during the ninety days, not a report at the end.
[14:03:11] Account Executive: Agreed, weekly.
[14:04:02 — Miriam Graham joined]
[14:04:18] Miriam Graham: Apologies. Lidia, did I miss the pricing?
[14:04:24] Lidia Holloway: We're on service. Short version, they opened by telling us they missed our threshold.
[14:04:36] Miriam Graham: Right. I'll be direct — I have three carriers in front of me this quarter and about ten minutes each. What's the one number I take to the executive committee?
[14:05:01] Account Executive: Total landed cost per parcel, held flat while reliability moves to 95. Everything else in the pack supports that sentence.
[14:05:19] Miriam Graham: Flat, or falling?
[14:05:24] Account Executive: Flat, on today's band. Your volume was 304,090 last year and Band 4 starts at 320,000 — on your growth you cross it in the second quarter. When you do, the rate drops. But I'm not going to quote you a band you haven't reached, so it's in the pack as a projection and labelled as one.
[14:06:02] Lidia Holloway: I'd rather see it as a projection than have it quoted at me and walked back later. Noted.
[14:06:20] Miriam Graham: What does the reliability fix cost me?
[14:06:26] Account Executive: The recovery plan, nothing. The three services we're recommending on top — Managed Account Reporting, Peak Season Planning, and extending Return Services to Alberta, BC and New Brunswick — those are priced in section five.
[14:06:52] Lidia Holloway: Peak Season Planning at nine and a half thousand. I want to push back on that one. We've had two bad Decembers. I'm being asked to pay to fix something that should already work.
[14:07:20] Account Executive: That's fair, and I don't have a good answer for you today.
[14:07:28] Lynne Robbins: Let me take that one. Lidia, I'd rather we bundled the first peak season into the recovery work than argue about it now. Let me confirm internally — I'll come back to you inside two weeks.
[14:07:51] Lidia Holloway: Two weeks is fine. That's the piece that decides whether this goes to Miriam as one number or three.
[14:08:14] Nestor Wilke: On the reporting — is that the board-pack format I asked about in October?
[14:08:22] Account Executive: Monthly by site, quarterly review with the account team. It's built to drop into a pack without you rebuilding it in Excel.
[14:08:39] Nestor Wilke: Then I'd want to trial it before we commit for a year.
[14:08:47] Account Executive: Three months, no commitment. If it doesn't save you the rebuild, we stop.
[14:08:58] Nestor Wilke: Yes. Do that.
[14:09:15] Miriam Graham: Returns — you're proposing three more provinces. What's the volume assumption behind that?
[14:09:26] Account Executive: I've used your national returns rate, 5.9%. I don't have it split by province.
[14:09:38] Miriam Graham: Then the number's soft. Lidia, can we get them the provincial split?
[14:09:47] Lidia Holloway: I can pull it. Give me until the end of next week.
[14:09:55] Account Executive: With that I can reprice the returns line properly rather than annualising a national average.
[14:11:30 — unrelated discussion of an industry conference in Halifax, approximately four minutes, no decisions]
[14:15:40] Lidia Holloway: One more thing and I'd rather say it here than have it sit under the table. Isaiah has a trial running with Northline on the Western lanes. It's been going since November.
[14:16:02] Account Executive: I know. I'd rather you told me the terms, but I understand if you can't.
[14:16:14] Lidia Holloway: I can't, not today.
[14:16:22] Miriam Graham: I'll say what Lidia won't. If Calgary is still under 95 in the autumn, that trial stops being a trial. That isn't a threat, it's just what will happen.
[14:16:47] Account Executive: Understood. That's why the recovery plan starts now rather than at signature.
[14:17:30] Miriam Graham: Alright. Where does that leave us?
[14:17:38] Account Executive: Recovery plan on Calgary starts immediately, weekly numbers to Nestor, findings by 30 April. Reporting on a three-month trial. Peak season — Lynne comes back inside two weeks. Returns repriced once Lidia sends the provincial split. Pricing itself we revisit when the volume actual confirms the band crossing.
[14:18:14] Miriam Graham: I can work with that. Lidia, put April in the calendar rather than waiting for March next year.
[14:18:29] Lidia Holloway: Will do.
[14:18:41] Miriam Graham: And — this is the first review in three years where I've been told a problem before I found it. That counts for something. Don't waste it.
[14:19:03] Account Executive: Thank you. I'll have the follow-up to you all tomorrow.
[14:19:20 — meeting ended]