De Mar’s Product Strategy Case Study

Please read the De Mar’s Product Strategy Case Study and Answer the following questions:

• What is De Mar’s Product? Identify the tangible parts of this product and its service components.

De Mar is dealing in providing plumbing repair and installation of new plumbing to their customers. So we can say that it is service providing company instead of a company heavily dependent on offering tangible products to their customers.

Their tangible products could be: The new parts that are required to repair the air conditioning, heating or other plumbing.

The service component are: One visit charge for multiple visits, around the clock services throughout the year and on the same day service provision promises including one year guarantee for the repair services provided.

• How should other areas of De Mar (marketing, finance, personnel) support its product strategy?

Marketing: Marketing strategies like Google Adsense can be used. This helps in getting customers who search for plumbing services on the internet with specific keywords like “best plumbing service in ABC area”.

Finance: Setting up reasonable prices so the customers are happy and the company makes considerable profits could help in managing company finances.

Personnel: De Mar need to employee the right person for the right job. To this they might need to make changes to their job allocation and recruiting strategies.

• Even though De Mar’s product is primarily a service product, how should each of the 10 strategic OM decisions in the text be managed to ensure that the product is successful?

Following is a detail of the management of the 10 strategic OM decisions from De Mar’s point of view:

Goods and services design: The services should be designed in such a way that the customers are asked for a feedback at the end of the service.

Quality: there should be no compromise on quality so that the repairs are not problematic within the one year guarantee time.

Process and capacity: Business processes must be kept within the capacity of the company. If there is forecast of more customers call, more people should be employed.

Location Selection: Location of the service delivery should be close to cities and towns to minimize on travel costs.

Layout design: The quality of the layout of the physical locations of the business adds to the quality of the business itself.

Human resource and job design: Jobs should be designed in accordance to the capabilities and skills of specific human resources.

Supply chain management: There needs to be a proper communication with the suppliers who provide the tangible items.

Inventory: The Company must have a clear view of what items it has and what is required.

Scheduling: There need to be proper job schedules for the employees who attend different customer calls.

Maintenance: The business operations of the company itself need a regular maintenance.