Business students hit high note for Pianohouse

DeGroote School of Business 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 Manish Kacker, AIC Professor in Strategic Business Studies, 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,” said 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 said.

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,” said 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,” wrote 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 increase 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,” said Van Suijdam.

Kacker was also impressed with the students' work. “The group worked very well
together, in a systematic, mature and cohesive manner,” he said. “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 agreed that the project was very beneficial to their education.

“We incorporated not only marketing knowledge, but also knowledge gained from all
our other courses at the DeGroote School of Business,” said 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,” said Van Suijdam, “I would be
happy to partner with the DeGroote School of Business again.”