down 50% from the same week the year before,
and the company went into
an urgent belt -tightening survival mode. A six -person "survive and thrive" committee reporting to
Fain and Williams was established to review all alternatives. Murphy presented three options for the
Leapfrog project to the committee. The first option was to slow down and cut 25% off some projects;
the second one consisted of shelving some of them completely, reducing overall costs by 50%; while
the third was to shelve the whole thing except for a small part of supply chain ($1.4 million in 2002).
To Murphy's surprise and shock, Fain decided to go for the third option. (Exhibit 5 shows the
Leapfrog project before and after 9/11.)