Case Study – Rosewood

Oak Inc. is a furniture and interior designs huge company where Ahmed Mokhtar used
to work in. A very creative artist in every sense of the word, thus, he was never about
the show. He was a part of almost every single success story in the company on both
managerial and creative aspects. Mokhtar is in his mid-40s, with 23 years of experience
in this field.

In 2011, a new CEO came on board, he didn’t see Mokhtar as much of an asset in the
time of the revolution where they had a need to cut cost, thus, forced him to resign.
Mokhtar tried to work as a freelancer and then, started his company Rosewood.

Rosewood provides a huge variety of interior design and decorations services. They
provide interior design from scratch, redecoration services, landscape services, outdoor
lighting decoration, indoor lighting only; all of the aforementioned is categorized under
three consecutive stages of services, which are, consultation, drawing and execution.
You can have any of them at any stage, two of them or all three.

They also, sell handmade products, wood crafts, like lighting units, and coffee tables,
and handmade leather crafts like floor carpets and wall carpets, as well as tableaus.

Mokhtar at that time had his end of service cash, which he hired a research company,
to provide him with a complete market research as well as a competition analysis. The
cost of the deliverables of what he asked for was very high, thus, he had to shrink the
deliverables to the minimum acceptable to start with.

Rosewood has only 4 junior employees, Mokhtar’s assistant who handles all the requests
from clients, and helps Mokhtar in his drawings, and designs, as well as the handmade
artwork he provides.

A general admin, who meets clients, schedule meetings, answers the company’s
phone, book-keeping, and other admin related tasks.

An office-boy who cleans the office, and finally a freelance sales guy, who barely gets
new clients, because he always says “clients say they can’t afford our products,
although they really love it”. When Mokhtar argued with the salesman saying “Find
people who have money then”, so the salesman replied “I did, but they’d rather buy
from a well-known place with those prices rather than a small company like ours.”

However, and due to COVID-19, Rosewood has been struggling pretty much in getting
new clients, because, hello, no one really wants to redecorate in a pandemic – that’s
what his salesperson says. Rosewood has a small number of loyal customers, and a very
good word-of-mouth, yet not enough to penetrate the market. The quality of their work
is beyond questioning, they’re super professional, they know how to serve customers,
they’re detail-oriented and have a beautiful taste – yet, the ordering process is very
hectic.
Customers have to submit a request on their website, Hanady, the general admin,
receives the request, calls the client, asks for more details then schedules another call
with Tamara, Mokhtar’s assistant, after-which, clients have to submit another request on
the website with the details agreed upon with Tamara, then she gives Mokhtar the
details so that he can start working on them. Then, Mokhtar starts drawing the design,
then meets with the clients for the first time for amendments. By then, a lot of time is
consumed, as the clients always have tons of amendments to make for their designs –
which is time consuming and double work. Clients however, admire Mokhtar’s work, but
throws comments about the long process.

Mokhtar has only one supplier that provides him with very high-quality raw materials, yet
very expensive. It’s the same supplier from his old huge interior design company, which
leaves him stuck with a very tiny margin of profit, yet still the customers complain about
the prices.

Their marketing activities target the exact needs of any house hold. Their ads are all
targeting the middle-middle class and the middle-lower class, their taste fits the upper
class, as well as the upper-middle class taste and their prices are high enough to be
sold to the upper middle class, who would by then see, that their products are already
cheap. They have an obvious targeting problem.

They started to be a little known as the not-so-elegant place to buy from, because of
their bad advertising designs, and low standard wordings used. After all, Hanady the
general admin is the one creating their social media ads. That, however, does not
attract the higher classes to buy despite of their very elegant services and products
taste and designs.

On another note, Mokhtar and Tamara are artists so, they’re office has become more
of a workshop with papers, wood and leather pieces scattered all over the place, the
office is unorganized, paint is on the walls, there’s no a single a place that is fit to meet
any clients. The place is a real mess, that current customers do not complain from, yet
it’s not a fitting place for the higher classes.

Rosewood can become a very big company but they just can’t seem to penetrate the
market properly. Mokhtar felt like he’s missing something, he decides to hire you as his
consultant to highlight his problems for him, so he can penetrate the market.
Please answer the following questions:

1. Out of the 7Ps of the services marketing mix, what generic problems do
Rosewood have:
a.) Place, Promotion, and Price
b.) Product, Price, Place and Promotion
c.) Physical Environment, Price, Process and Promotion
d.) Physical Environment, Price, and Promotion
e.) People, Process, and Physical Environment

2. The consultation services provided by Rosewood is considered to be:

a.) Information Processing
b.) Possession Processing
c.) Mental Stimulus Processing
d.) People Processing

3. The execution of decoration services provided by Rosewood is considered to be:

a.) Information Processing
b.) Possession Processing
c.) Mental Stimulus Processing
d.) People Processing

4. From the case in hand, please specify the type of focus that Rosewood currently
have:
a.) Market Focus
b.) Services Focus
c.) Unfocused
d.) Fully Focused

5. Rosewood’s potential clients would rather purchase from a well-known brand,

this means that:
a.) Rosewood needs to expand
b.) Rosewood needs to shutdown
c.) Rosewood needs a better salesman
d.) Rosewood has a targeting and positioning problem
e.) Rosewood has a positioning problem
6. If we assume Rosewood was to change their targeted customers without any
pricing amendments, they should target ____________ class, but they will need to
enhance ___________, ____________, and _____________
a.) Lower-middle class, process, people, promotion
b.) Upper-middle and Upper Class, process, promotion and physical environment
c.) Top notch of the society, price, place and promotion
d.) Middle-middle class, promotion, price, and positioning
e.) Upper middle class, process, people and place

7. If Rosewood, needs to keep targeting the middle-middle class and the middle-
lower class, they will need to find a way to enhance their ___________
a.) Physical environment
b.) Process
c.) Price
d.) People
e.) Price and Process

8. Rosewood can easily sell all their goods and services online
a.) True
b.) False

9. If Rosewood, tailored different goods and services, with different price ranges for
more market segments, their strategy would be __________________
a.) Market Focus
b.) Services Focus
c.) Unfocused
d.) Fully Focused

10. If Rosewood decided to eliminate all good and services and work with huge
companies with only outdoor lightning services, their strategy would be_________
a.) Market Focus
b.) Services Focus
c.) Unfocused
d.) Fully Focused
11. If Rosewood decided to keep all current goods and services, and targeted the
upper class only, their strategy would be _______________
a.) Market Focus
b.) Services Focus
c.) Unfocused
d.) Fully Focused

12. When Rosewood’s customers say “they have a beautiful taste that they can’t find
anywhere else”, that’s considered to be….
a.) People Processing
b.) Differentiation point
c.) Fully focused strategy
d.) Positioning
e.) Demographical Analysis

13. For Rosewood to sell their tangible decoration items, they have to open a store in
Zamalek
a.) True
b.) False

14. If Mokhtar decides to make a delivery service to his products, which type of
service is it?
a.) A Financial intermediary
b.) Process
c.) Place
d.) Core Service
e.) Supplementary Service

15. Rosewood Consultation services are considered to be

a.) Supplementary service
b.) Service encounter
c.) Core Services
d.) Prepurchase Stage
e.) Post encounter
16. Rosewood Consultation services are considered to be _____________

a.) Core service with high contact

b.) Core service with low contact
c.) High contact service
d.) Supplementary service with high contact
e.) Supplementary service with low contact

17. When newlyweds decide to furnish their house, so they google places, and
Rosewood comes up, what customer purchasing stage is that?

a.) Prepurchase – Need arousal

b.) Prepurchase – Information Search
c.) Service Encounter
d.) Perceived Risk
e.) Prepurchase – evaluating alternatives

18. When newlyweds decide to furnish their house, so they google places, and
Rosewood comes up amongst others that are more known to them than
Rosewood, so they start to compare, this customer purchasing stage is __________
a.) Prepurchase – Need arousal
b.) Prepurchase – Information Search
c.) Service Encounter
d.) Perceived Risk
e.) Prepurchase – evaluating alternatives

19. When newlyweds decide to furnish their house, so they google places, and
Rosewood comes up, but they’ve never heard of it, and a little worried to try
them out, this customer purchasing stage is called __________

a.) Prepurchase – Need arousal

b.) Prepurchase – Information Search
c.) Service Encounter
d.) Perceived Risk
e.) Prepurchase – evaluating alternatives
20. When Rosewood customers said, they’re very professional and that they’re over
the moon dealing with them, this is called ___________

a.) Customer Satisfaction

b.) Customer Dissatisfaction
c.) Customer Delight
d.) Customer High Contact Interaction
e.) Post Encounter – Customer Delight

21. Evaluating Rosewood’s interior designing price worthiness, before trying out the
service is an attribute named ________________

a.) Service Attribute

b.) Search Attribute
c.) Experience Attribute
d.) Service Encounter
e.) Credence Attribute

22. Purchasing a handmade wooden lighting unit from Rosewood, through their
Facebook page is considered ____________ contact

a.) Very High

b.) Nonexistent
c.) Low
d.) Micro
e.) High

23. Purchasing a handmade wooden lighting unit from Rosewood, through their
website is considered ____________ contact

a.) Very High

b.) Nonexistent
c.) Micro
d.) Low
e.) High
24. Purchasing a handmade wooden lighting unit from Rosewood, through their
office is considered ____________ contact

a.) Very High

b.) Nonexistent
c.) Micro
d.) Low
e.) High

25. If your music mentor, whom you admire so much, bought a beautiful handmade
coffee table along with a handmade chair, and a handmade genuine leather
carpet to furnish a corner that sees that sunset from her house, from Rosewood.
After a few months, you felt that you need to make your own artistic corner in the
house that would aspire you with your music creation, that is a need aroused
based on ____________________

a.) External Source

b.) Physical Condition
c.) Unconscious mind
d.) Personal Interactions
e.) Customer Delight

26. When Rosewood, found that they’re having a problem selling, so they decided to
hire you as a service marketer to help them with their problems, that was a need
aroused based on _________________

a.) External Source

b.) Physical Condition
c.) Unconscious mind
d.) Personal Interactions
e.) Customer Delight

27. You thought Rosewood was a place for lower standard people, but then you
found that your elegant and fancy role model buys from them, that is a
promotional problem called _______________

a.) Customer-Customer Interaction

b.) Services cannot be visualized
c.) Customers need more education about how to use Rosewood’s services
d.) Rosewood is a low standard place
e.) Level of Demand Problem
28. You helped Rosewood, and they flourished very much and even became that
latest trends on social media platforms, and started to sell so many designs
made by Mokhtar and Tamara, but now new problems aroused, can you tell
what could they possibly be?

a.) Type of Customer

b.) Over Demand
c.) Available Capacity problem
d.) Over Demand and Available Capacity
e.) Time and place of delivery

29. Rosewood’s very high quality and very good prices attracted so many people
from Sinai to purchase their products, while their head office is in Sheikh Zayed.
Rosewood’s delivery charge became significantly higher, so customers weirded
the situation, when Mokhtar asked Hanady why, she said because it depends on
____________________

a.) The Type of Customer

b.) Time and place of delivery
c.) Level of demand
d.) Available capacity
e.) Customer Delight