Assignment One - Donovan Associates

Jim Donovan is the President of Donovan Associates, a supplier of monuments and tombstones. Donovan Associates sold tombstones and monuments through selling arrangements with funeral parlors.

Donovan was keynote speaker at the Annual Meeting of the Ontario Monument Builders Association. He started his talk with a state of the union review in which he commented that "Monuments is a tough business these days. It's not like the old days. Back then, each parlor carried only one brand of monument.The people buying monuments from the parlors were not price-sensitive: rather, they equated the price they'd be willing to pay for a monument with their emotional attachment to, and respect for, the deceased. Buyers believed that quality and price went hand-in-hand. The only question was how much they could afford.

Nowadays, it's different. People are planning their own funerals and, possibly out of modesty, they are instructing their estates to conserve resources. Thus they are doing their own shopping and expect the funeral parlors to carry monuments from more than one supplier. Worse yet, whether the purchase is for themselves or others, the majority of buyers seem to feel that all they need is an 'average sized tombstone' at the lowest price."

Marketing 101 - What sorts of things might Donovan consider doing if he discovers that he cannot do the things required to support a premium price?Be certain to comment both on the nature of the product offering and the supporting infrastructure