SteinWay Pianos
...y & Sons is a very old company established in 1853. So it has a very strong heritage accompanying it. It has a huge brand presence in the market, and well recognized and respected in the market. • Over the years Steinway & Sons has increased its reputation by winning a lot of awards like in New York industrial exhibition. The promotional flair with the opening in 1866 of Steinway Hall increased its presence all the more. It presented pianos to the White House in 1903, 1938 which is very prestigious. Such activities increased the reputation of Steinway & Sons in the market. • Association with CBS Musical Instruments helped Steinway & Sons success to some extent. It helped it to get associated with some quality leaders like Gulbranson, Gemeinhardt, etc. Moreover capital spending increased. • Perez was a people oriented man. Moreover he gave a lot of emphasis to quality. His perception of quality was perfection. There should be extreme focus in decreasing defects, and pay extreme attention to even the minutest part. In other words he never tampered and continued with the existing tradition in Steinway & Sons. He also tried to make all responsible for the quality, so bring about worker involvement. • The labours in Steinway & Sons were skilled. And there was no compromise on worker quality in any process. The workers usually kept continuing as generations, children of senior workers joining. This kept the continuity of the traditional way of manufacturing. Moreover this increases the attachment a labour has with the organisation, where he considers himself responsible because he is continuing his family’s tradition. • A lot of focus was given in precision of manufacturing process, and raw material selection. • Research & development was intensive. E.g.: plastic keys which lasted longer were used. Experiments in electronic actions were given. • Steinway Concert Service helped promote the brand further. Because of the concert banks developed long standing relationships between performers and particular piano. Threats from competition General idea The common users would buy pianos as musical instruments and also as furniture. Pianos were expensive. Users would find it difficult to evaluate the quality of the piano and so be concerned about the durability mainly. So it appears that Steinway was focussing on high quality of music for mainly niche users like musicians and not mass markets. Baldwin Piano • Extensive dealer networ...