DeGroote students hit high note for Pianohouse

DeGroote (Victoria Coates) | Hamilton, ON | July 12, 2011

DeGroote students Leslie Bell, Vanessa Cortina, Brandon Greenspoon, Darren Kloet, and Stephen Shnier were right on key for their marketing project with Pianohouse Burlington.

The project, assigned by professor Manish Kacker, was to create a marketing plan for a business by evaluating its current situation and outlining viable marketing strategies.

The students chose Pianohouse Burlington, a retail piano store specializing in new and used pianos that has been serving the music community for fifteen years. They approached Paula Van Suijdam, the general manager, and asked if the store would be interested in serving as the client for their project.

"I'm always open to working with youth," says Van Suijdam. "I think it is important to give them opportunities to get real experience."

The group organized a meeting with Van Suijdam at the store to learn about the business and she was impressed with their motivation and initiative. "From the first meeting I could sense that they really wanted to do a good job. They came with detailed, thought through questions," she says.

The students then developed a profile of the business and compared the marketing approach of Pianohouse to its two closest competitors.

"One of the things I found really beneficial was that the group compared our website to the competitors' websites," says Van Suijdam. "These websites play music for visitors and the students found this to be valuable. It made me realize that this is something we need to explore since we are planning a complete facelift of our website this summer."

The final task of the assignment required the students to write a report outlining problems with the company's marketing strategies and possible solutions that could be used to improve business.

"After evaluating Pianohouse's current marketing practices and their effectiveness, we found most of their techniques were advertising without any monitoring or quality assurance," says the group.

To remedy this problem, the students suggested two solutions. The first was to hire a marketing researcher, and the second, which the group advised would be more effective, was for Pianohouse to attain more inventory in order to serve more customers.

"It was refreshing to read the report and see how a group of undergraduate students, who had no experience with the piano business, were able to provide such a professional analysis that provided a very good view of the business," says Van Suijdam.

Professor Kacker was also impressed with the students' work. "The group worked very well together, in a systematic, mature and cohesive manner," says Kacker. "They rapidly developed an in-depth knowledge of the industry and successfully applied marketing concepts and frameworks to develop a thorough, insightful and feasible marketing plan for Pianohouse."

The students are in agreement that the project, which exemplifies DeGroote's commitment to experiential learning, was very beneficial.

"We incorporated not only marketing knowledge, but also knowledge gained from all our other courses at DeGroote," says the group of students when discussing the assignment. "The experience gained by participating in this project was both relevant and interesting. The report was not so much about the grade but more about gaining essential business and life skills that can be transferred and used practically in our future careers."

Suijdam agrees that assignments like this one are a great way to expose students to the real world of business and give them an opportunity to apply what they are learning.

"I was very impressed with the work the students did," says Van Suijdam, "I would be happy to partner with the DeGroote School of Business again."