Aqualisa Quartz Case Essay

Aqualisa Quartz In the targeting market, we tend to target plumbers and end users (Middle to high income) because most of the end users are suggested by the plumbers. The others might buy from showrooms. Therefore, we have to target them as well Positioning Statement To middle-high income customers, Aqualisa Quartz is a high premium shower brand which come under mixer shower category that offers quality and latest innovation because Aqualisa Quartz has benefits in water pressure, ease of installation, use and design. HOW 12775 comes ? This number is come from the fact that case study states that unit sold of Quartz is between 30-40 units per day. So we take the mean which is 35 units and times 365 days. Therefore, the unit sold per year is 12775. Problems: The problem for Aqualizer is that Plumbers are lack of knowledge and innovation of Aqualisa Quartz. Moreover, most customer decisions rely on plumbers. Second issue is the bad experience of electronic shower that customers and plumbers had. The last main issue is that brand perception towards Aqualisa Quartz from Customer is very low because customers do not perceive the value of Aqualisa Quartz and the group of only high income customers (Current target) is quite too small. Solutions: 4Ps * Product * Price * Place However, the product, price and place will remain the same, because Aqualisa quartz is a new product and latest innovative shower so the functions and features are the most improvement at the time (Temperature control, ease of installation, design, water pressure and usage). Another reason that we maintain the price to where it is, Aqualisa Quartz is a premium brand so the price should be high to remain brand image. Moreover, the company invested a lot for R&D and wanted to gain profit margin to break-even. And for the places, normally plumbers will buy from trade shop, and end users will buy at showrooms. Therefore, the existing channel is already effective and efficient. From the case (Exhibit 6), trade shops and showrooms can generate 470,000 units per year. This shows that the two places are powerful to sell the products of Aqualisa. Promotion Our first strategy is to go after independent plumbers by providing product orientation events by calling plumber to attend the training and give 150 pounds as the compensation. This will satisfy and make the plumber attend because they do not lose the income when they attend our training. The orientation will be held every 3 months changing by geography. We will gain Plumber information from Database from APHC – Association of Plumbing & Heating. The capacity for one meeting will be 100 seats per group. The  reasons we make 100 seats is because we believe that the larger the sample the higher chance of product achieving success. Another stategy is to create trustworthy of Aqualisa Quartz from existing users to new customers. Opinion leaders will convince the new customers and also build the confidence in the existing users that the electronic shower (Aqualisa Quartz) will last long and not have any problems like the early electronic showers by guarantee the satisfaction by referring the comment from opinion leaders (from showrooms). The third strategy is the use of award will help communicate value of Aqualisa Quartz and build the customer relationship with the brand. By doing this, the company could expand the new target group from only high to high-middle income. This would segmented by the income per year. If we could make the middle income group believes that it is worth for them to spend on our product, sales per unit would dramatically increase since this group is even larger than the high income and higher value perceived as well. Aqualisa Quartz already has the advertisement about the products so all they should do is to specify the beneficial points of the product, and also present the prize of Aqualisa Quartz to inform the target who has the middle income as well as those who has high income. Goal defense Quartz is a representative of the premium product under the brand Aqualisa, and the units sold are lower than the expectation of the Rawlinson (30-40 instead of 100-200 units per day). If we can sell more, it will generate overall sales a lot and potentially increase the market share. Problem defense According to the case, plumbers would like to go for the familiar products which they have much experience. If there is any problem after installation, plumbers are responsible for the fixing costs. Therefore, they avoid trying new product they are not familiar with. Moreover, the percentage of plumbers influencing customers’ decision is more than 50% which is resulted in they do not recommend Quartz to the customers. Another reason is that in year 1980, there were some manufacturers who introduced electronic showers, and the products were not successful because of the poor design and the failure of the usage. After that, it created  skepticism toward anything that is electronic. That makes both customers and plumbers refuse Quartz. The third reason is that Aqualisa Quartz answers all the features that the perfect showers should have in terms of water pressure, stable temperature, design, ease of installation and innovation. Even though the price is quite high the middle income can afford Aqualisa Quartz as well seen from the income information (15,000-30,000 pounds per year). For the problem of value perception, the evidence was in the year 2001. Quartz was awarded in the Bathroom Expo as a top prize since the very beginning of the Quartz but people did not know this information. Therefore, the sales of Aqualisa Quartz are not up to the expected units. Solution defense: The Conducting of orientation meeting will cultivate the perception inside the plumbers’ mind. The content of the meeting will be about the ease of the installation, and to show the convenience of the electronic functions of Quartz. In fact, Quartz’s installation duration is  ¼ of the other competitive products. It is the benefit that the plumbers can do more than one job in a day. It can certainly ensure the increase in sale. To demonstrate, we will definitely gain 12% of plumbers out from 10,000. These 12% of plumbers will generate sales 4 times higher than current sales. How many amount of sale would generate by plumbers? 12% *12775= 1533 ( 12% comes from 1200 that attend in meeting for the whole three years) 1533*4=6132 ( 4 comes from 4 times faster installation which means faster installation will lead to higher sales) As a result, we can get the sale increase about 74% of the goal which increase the chance of success. From the case, customers and plumbers do not trust the shower with electronic system (Aqualisa Quartz included). They will not use this type of products because they have bad experience with the electronic shower before. If Aqualisa can show them that the problems were solved and the Aqualisa Quartz actually works. Some of the plumbers and customers are willing to try it. Because the sales from show room are pretty strong (about 20% of the total sales) we can refer the comments from the real users and show them to the potential target groups. That would make them feel more confident to try our product. In conclusion, Aqualisa Quartz was  awarded in the expo but customers and plumbers do not notice. The problem is about the value perceived and trust. Therefore, this award can guarantee the quality and help with the value that is the awarded brand. We can do it by attaching the detail of award into the communication to make customers notice the â€Å"cleverness† and â€Å"elegant design† of Quartz.