Kawai’s Hand-Built Grand Piano and Its Development Case Study

Quality and Consumer Satisfaction

Quality is a measurement tool used to evaluate a product or service as perceived by customers through conformance to detail and excellence (Prentice, 2013). Product quality enhances the competitiveness of an association, which creates a competing advantage for the firm. Associations see the use of quality management approaches as a way that can advance and support reestablishment and performance (Prentice, 2013). This noteworthy emphasis on quality makes performance an effective instrument for consumer satisfaction, product differentiation, and improvement (Rajeswari, Srinivasulu, & Thiyagarajan, 2017).

Although quality management centers on decreasing imperfections and errors in products using estimation, insights, and other instruments, associations perceive that enduring change cannot be achieved without its operational exercises (Rajeswari et al., 2017). Business managers understand that the methodologies they use to convey quality influences product value, consumer loyalty, and satisfaction (Prentice, 2013). This paper investigates how Kawai hand-built Grand evolved and how the gatherings of people associated with its piano production developed. The paper discusses the meaning of quality and its implications for Kawai’s hand-built Grand. To consider key issues in quality, the paper evaluates customer satisfaction with different approaches to quality. The concept of craftsmanship will be evaluated using Kawai’s hand-built Grand.

Approaches to Quality

Transcendent Approach

Quality is a property or features identifiable through experience. The definition means quality is identified with a correlation of features by displaying quality as a picture variable in the psyches of consumers (Haemoon & Kawon, 2017). In such a manner, quality can be characterized as the integrity or perfection of a product.

Product-Based Approach

The product-based approach distinguishes properties that demonstrate higher quality. It characterizes quality as an exact and quantifiable variable. Changes in quality relate contrasts in the nature or property of an item. Thus, products can be classified by the measure of attributes they carry (Haemoon & Kawon, 2017).

Value-Based Approach

The value-based approach characterizes quality based on expenses and costs. Haemoon and Kawon (2017), describes quality as a level of perfection at a worthy cost and the control of variability at a satisfactory cost. The value-based approach expects that customer’s choices include exchanging quality against the cost. As a result, quality item or service creates more noteworthy value or fulfillment at an equivalent cost (Jeon, Magnini, Kim, & Hyun, 2013).

User-Based Approach

The meaning of quality depends on the assumption that quality is dictated by the client’s needs (Jeon et al., 2013). This approach is a subjective perspective of value. Based on this assumption, quality is characterized as a level of wellness for the product’s intended use.

Manufacturing-Based Approach

Jeon, Magnini, Kim, and Hyun (2013) characterize this approach of quality as the attractive result of designing and assembling practice or conformance to specific features. Product features are extraordinary targets controlled by craftsmen and designers.

Integrating Approaches

Although quality is critical to people throughout the supply chain, how it is viewed, rely on one’s rank in the supply chain (Jeon & Choi, 2017). The meaning of quality varies for a designer, artisan, distributor, or a consumer. Integrating diverse methodologies has vital ramifications and must be recognized. It elucidates the contending perspectives of quality. This concurrence is best outlined by the accompanying case of quality in a healing facility. Hospitals offer a decent interpretation of how unique perspectives of quality can influence a patient’s recovery process. A preternatural meaning of quality applies to the healing facility’s desire to advance a picture of perfection by guaranteeing the competency of its staff, accessibility of medications for emergencies, and the nearness of therapeutic innovation (Jeon & Choi, 2017). Thus, patients make subjective conclusions about the service provided. Conversely, people who review clinical proficiency characterize quality using the product-based approach. However, the patient’s opinion on quality healthcare is centered on product-based and client-based criteria. As interest in quality healthcare expands, physicians must swing to a manufacturing-based approach for ensuring that the determination of service is followed (Jeon & Choi, 2017).

Craftsmanship

Craftsmanship is implicit and not recorded. This expands the danger of a firm losing its aggregate tacit learning. Surveys demonstrate that tacit information and learning are difficult to exchange than implicit knowledge (Cattani, Dunbar, & Shapira, 2017). As a result, tacit knowledge is transferred through direct perception, participation, and close communication (Cattani et al., 2017). Thus, the properties of learning are influenced by the rate at which information is accumulated, retained, and diffused in the organization. Consequently, high levels of craftsmanship, such as apprentices, are vital in measuring quality. As indicated by Cattani, Dunbar, and Shapira (2017), when confronted with choices like a Steinway piano and Kawai hand-built designs, purchasers confront quality indecision and tactical uncertainty.

Quality indecision comes from the mystery that encompasses items made utilizing artisan techniques. Non-experts piano players find it challenging to measure the quality of hand-built pianos. However, virtuoso piano players know the most effective method to assess a piano based on quality. Since non-experts see virtuoso piano players as agents of high-status culture, they may buy pianos that virtuoso musician play (Cattani et al., 2017). Further, to the degree that virtuoso entertainers reliably pick a Kawai hand-built piano as opposed to Steinway pianos, this proposes that the “emphasis of value” made by Kawai has been satisfied, creating longstanding assumptions regarding quality and social. Thus, non-expert’s quality evaluations and readiness to pay to rely on Kawai’s capacity to meet the requests of virtuoso musicians, especially their gratitude for the craftsmanship and the identity of each piano.

Craft genuineness empowers an association to separate its items from the products of firms in the same industry (Cattani et al., 2017). As Cattani, Dunbar, and Shapira (2013), noted, gaining “the support of a group of people requires congruity with the buyer’s criteria for what products should look like and separation from other substitutes. Products neglecting to meet the criteria are disposed of. However, after meeting the market requirement, piano manufacturers endeavor to differentiate their product from those progressed by its companions and establish its relative attractiveness quality (Cattani et al., 2013). In evaluating product quality, considerations should focus on craftsmanship utilizing fitting craft systems, devices, and procedures. For an item to be perceived as legitimate, the producer must exceed expectations of its conventional assembling procedures and the audience evaluation of product quality (Cattani et al., 2013).

Quality and Consumer Satisfaction

The connection between consumer satisfaction and quality can be investigated using quality measurements (Cattani, Ferriani, & Allison, 2014). The measurement tool decides the technical quality of the product phase that the client perceives when the service and its purchaser-supplier collaboration are over (Cattani et al., 2014). Customers can gauge this measurement moderately equitably using its specialized nature (Dhar, 2015). Consequently, the “service dimension” is another quality measurement, which has been utilized as a practical or quality process. Under this approach, the customer is influenced by experience (Dhar, 2015). Functional quality cannot be assessed as impartially as the specialized measurement, however functional quality would most likely be more imperative than specialized quality in deciding apparent quality (Gans & Ryall, 2016). The musical instrument industry has a measure of both the technical dimension and functional dimension of quality. For instance, if a defect in the hand-built piano is resolved with an improved product, the result of the imperfection handling process has a technical quality. However, if the imperfection handling process has been complex and tedious, the functional quality would be affected.

Consumer satisfaction is a vital key issue for organizations in their endeavors to enhance quality in the aggressive commercial center. It can be viewed as subjective or an estimation apparatus in the music industry. Customer satisfaction is considered to influence client retention, profitability, and competitiveness (Gans & Ryall, 2016). As indicated by Solomon, Bester, and Moll (2017), consumer satisfaction improves customer loyalty while supporting financial performance. Consequently, consumer satisfaction strengthens the relationship between the manufacturing firm and the customer, and this profound feeling of joint effort has been observed to be profitable (Solomon et al., 2017).

Customers compare the apparent performance of a product with specific measurement standards. Clients are satisfied when the perceived quality is more noteworthy than the measurement standard. However, dissatisfaction occurs when the product quality misses the mark regarding the measurement standard. Satisfied clients find it simple to switch providers when a superior offer is produced. The significance of consumer loyalty is underlined in markets where rivalry is extraordinary (Solomon et al., 2017). Consumer loyalty is one of the key components in quality service. Quality service is an approach that underlines general fulfillment through the continuous change of items. Manufacturing organizations are embracing total quality management to improve performance. Understanding the client’s necessities is fundamental to guarantee consumer loyalty, and the interest for the product should be seen in connection with the intended use (Lai, 2015). Lai (2015) proposes that client orientation, relational abilities, and reaction to feedback all assume an imperative part of the general fulfillment of the customer.

Approach to Consumer Satisfaction

The consumer loyalty approach defines quality as the degree to which an item or service meets and additionally surpasses a client’s desires. The focus of this approach, contrasted with the quality approach, is that it catches imperative requirements from the customer’s perspective. As indicated by this assumption, the client defines quality. The shortcomings of this approach are that estimating clients’ desires is challenging when compared with short-term and long-term goals (Lai, 2015). Lamont (2012) suggests that quality is the fulfillment of an entire scope of execution criteria held by a connecting host of partners and intervened by a range of components. As indicated by Lai (2015), the literature on quality focuses on the challenges of producers as opposed to offering an incentive for the client. There is a requirement for client introduction and fulfillment, not for assigning obligation.

Consumer satisfaction can be utilized for assessment of value and eventually for evaluation of the accomplishment of an organization’s quality change program. As indicated by Haemoon & Kawon (2017), an effective quality change program creates a higher item and service quality, which will prompt enhanced client fulfillment. Based on this assumption, Kawai’s management should embrace total quality management techniques to establish its presence in musical instruments. It is also important to integrate craftsmanship and quality as an “aggregate offering” that produces the aggregate level of consumer satisfaction.

The implications of Quality for Kawai Hand-Built Grand

Based on the literature on quality, customer satisfaction, and craftsmanship, this paper can draw its analysis on the topic. Kawai hand-built Grand faces a huge task in sales strategy. The management should introduce an adaptable market strategy that changes with customer’s behaviors. The factors that support Kawai products include quality, economic status, and the bandwagon effect. Quality is vital in Kawai’s bid to revolutionize the piano market. Thus, the craft of making durable hand-made Grand must consider tone, sound, and power in the registers. Consequently, products should be resistant to water and solvents. In terms of economic status, the Steinway Grand is far expensive than Kawai Grand. This variable can play a major role for low-income earners. Thus, Kawai should improve its mastery of craftsmanship and provide competent technicians during installation (Efron, 2000). Many business experts believe quality is made by keeping the measure of items that work as indicated by the specification. They contend that quality removes errors and satisfies client desires (Cattani et al., 2017).

Craftsmanship includes the gifted working with the hands to make something of use where the abilities require skill and innovation. When a product’s quality is measured, the process is based on the customer’s experience. As a result, quality is measured by the properties of the item and experience encountered with these products. Since experience depends on the item, its environment, and a passionate connection with the purchaser, the perceived estimation of an item fluctuates from the environment to the individual. The variance between the real item quality and perceived quality prompts a circumstance where producers struggle to improve the apparent quality without expanding the item quality (Cattani et al., 2017). To remain focused, the Kawai organization should improve its quality through expansive craftsmanship that influences customer’s satisfaction.

Another challenge for Kawai’s hand-made Grand is the perceived value of a pianist’s perspective (Efron, 2000). Musical instruments are complemented by the player’s body gestures. Thus, the position of surface keys can enhance arm gestures during play. This strategy plays an important role in building the pianist’s perspective of Kawai’s hand-made Grand. Kawai’s products can create a market storm in regions of low income. The price range of Steinway and Shigeru’s products gives Kawai’s product a competitive advantage. Having achieved quality for Kawai products, customers are keen on receiving the value for their money. As a result, low budget buyers may opt for Kawai products as against the Steinway and Shigeru Grand. Thus, the price regime is a boost for Kawai’s hand-made Grand.

The bandwagon effect considers the emotional connection between pianists and their products. Most pianists believe Kawai Grand is an excellent piano; however, their perceived value of the Steinway Grand is influenced by the bandwagon effect. As a result, Kawai’s manager can organize shows and concerts to display its products using popular and professional pianists. Such concerts with a huge global view can improve the competing advantage using the bandwagon effect. Although most people say the Steinway Grand is far better than other competing models, these are mere assumptions because to evaluate these instruments, a pianist must assemble all competing brands to give a fair analysis. For example, a Grand pianist should buy all three pianos and then compare their tone and top register. It extends that the bandwagon effect is a variable that sold the Steinway Grand.

Conclusion

To succeed, the organization will require more than advertising. It should adjust a social attitude in a nation that once expelled pianos as middle-class extravagances. Kawai merchants need to persuade their wealthier customer base that the instruments make great investments, evading the excessively forceful deals strategies. They need to instruct guardians about the potential result of purchasing a piano that is not expensive. Furthermore, they have to encourage music interns who are progressively swinging too low budget pianos. Each instrument is independent of its producer or substitute model. Clients are satisfied when the perceived quality is more noteworthy than the measurement standard. Consumer satisfaction can be utilized for assessment of value and eventually for evaluation of the accomplishment of an organization’s quality change program. Based on this assumption, Kawai’s management should embrace total quality management techniques to establish its presence in musical instruments. It is also important to integrate craftsmanship and quality as an “aggregate offering” that produces the aggregate level of consumer satisfaction. Between materials, design, and cost, a great deal of variables can have a considerable measure of effect. It is important to note that two Kawai hand-made Grand with a similar model and size can sound different. Thus, the capacity to integrate quality and consumer satisfaction can reduce the competing edge of Steinway’s pianos.

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