The Capstone is the culminating project in the Digital Marketing Specialization. The corporate partner for the specialization is W.W. Grainger(http://www.grainger.com/) . They are the largest supplier of Maintenance, Repair and Operations (MRO) products. Millions of businesses and institutions worldwide rely on Grainger for pumps, motors, hand tools, janitorial supplies, fasteners and much more. In 2017, they had sales of US Dollar 10.4 Billion, and about 60% of orders originated online. You will be working on a problem specified by the Digital Marketing team at Grainger, to develop a channel strategy to increase sales of Bosch power tools on Grainger.com. You will have the opportunity to combine the tools and techniques obtained through all the courses in this specialization and apply them to a real business problem. The Capstone project will be 6 weeks long. You must take the Capstone project class after taking all the other courses in this Specialization. This course is part of the iMBA offered by the University of Illinois, a flexible, fully-accredited online MBA at an incredibly competitive price. For more information, please see the Resource page in this course and onlinemba.illinois.edu.
Hangout 2- Bosch and Kevin Hartman
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Получаемые навыки
Marketing Plan, Digital Marketing, Marketing Analytics, Marketing Performance Measurement And Management
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AS
Mar 01, 2018
Very well planned and comprehensive. Nicely captures all the areas and learning in previous modules(courses) and then asks to apply the concepts learned.
JJ
Jan 14, 2017
Excellent course! well structured, gives you an overall perspective of Digital Marketing. Willing to gain deeper learning on the topics discussed.
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Course Overview & Module 1 Client/Brand Analysis
In this module, you will get an overview of the Captone, learn about the client and the problem statement, and get to know your peers. You will also start research into the client and the brand before you work on your campaign.
Преподаватели
Aric Rindfleisch
John M. Jones Professor of Marketing
Kevin Hartman
Visiting Professor & Head of Analytics at Google
Vishal Sachdev
Clinical Assistant Professor , Director, Illinois MakerLab
Mike Yao
Associate Professor of Digital Media
[MUSIC]
Hi everyone.
Welcome to this hangout with the representators from Bosch and
Professor Kevin Hartman.
So we have Sonesh Shah and Reshma here from Bosch, and
Professor Hartman whom you have seen earlier in the analytics courses.
So thank you all for being here.
Just a note about how we'll run the session.
So I have a few questions that were submitted on the forums
on Coursera earlier.
I have shared that with the speakers.
We will run through some of those question first.
And if those of you who are watching the broadcast live,
please use the Q and A button on the handout screen.
And the questions appear for us in our panel.
And I will pick one of those questions.
It will show up as the active questions that we're answering during the Hang Out.
So with that said, let's get started.
First of all, Someh and Reshma I'll move to you.
We had a few questions come up from the learners about
not knowing enough, or not having enough sources about Bosch tools as a brand.
We were able to give them some content with the folks at Granger,
but if you could share your perspectives on Bosch tools as a brand.
And then there are some questions that delve deeper
into the other aspect in the questions I've shared.
So could you talk about that first?
>> Sure. First of all, thank you.
And you guys are hitting on a problem that we tend to face generally is
that awareness of our products and our brand, and
our space hasn't been where we wanted it to be in general.
But let's talk a little bit about Bosch Tools.
And I'm more than happy to answer any questions.
So Bosch, first of all, B-O-S-C-H.
Bosch is a very large global organization,
close to 70 billion euros in sales and has businesses and
everything from automotive to power tools, to home appliances.
So specifically speaking about the power tools division.
We're also global division,
we have the market leader globally in power tools and accessories.
And we have a few different brands from a global perspective.
We have the Bosch, Professional brand, which is in blue, always in blue color.
We have a Bosch DIY brand,
which is in the green color, not sold in the United States, or Canada.
We have the Dremel brand, we have the Skil brand.
Those are four major brands that we sell throughout the world.
For this particular exercise, we're focusing on the Bosch Professional brand.
And that's the, again, the blue brand.
So anytime you see the Bosch logo on a power tool and
the color of the tool itself is in a dark blue.
That product is meant specifically for a professional power tool user.
And so what is a professional power tool user?
They're primarily in the construction trades.
So they're in building, they're in remodeling, there can be electricians,
there can be plumbers.
But essentially they are building, and
our focus very much heavily so is on the construction industry.
So, you'll see our products at very large scale high-rises.
You'll see our products inside smaller remodels, for example.
From a positioning standpoint, Bosch has always been very,
very proud of their heritage in engineering and product development.
We pride ourselves on our quality of our products.
Our products are generally speaking at a premium level to
the market in terms of quality, durability and reliability.
Our warranty and our positioning in that sense is secondary to none.
And that's why we really pride ourselves in the ability to be for the professional
and used on the job site in a level that our competition can't match.
Our primary product categories and going in order of kind of our
heritage actually and in terms of what we're known for.
First and foremost is our products around concrete drilling.
They are specifically called hammers.
You'll see a lot of, they're called demolition hammers, rotary hammers.
Essentially they are larger power tools that are meant to drill into concrete.
And from there we also have a very strong heritage in wood working.
So kind of on the other side of kinda large scale construction you have fine
wood working.
Fine wood working is really around the craftsman.
Having a garage of kinda of workshop whether building
much more detailed and precision based Products out of wood.
At the same time, we have a very strong presence in benchtop products.
Benchtop products are larger products that have to be on a bench.
This would be something like a table saw or a miter saw.
And, these again are meant for the workshop type approach, but
also for carpentry.
So, if your building a house for example, and you need to put wood studs everywhere.
You would use one of our table saws potentially, or our miter saws.
We also have products in the lines of metal workings, so things like grinders.
And kinda the biggest category for us,
that we're putting a lot of our investment dollars into, is on cordless.
And so what does cordless mean?
It's pretty straightforward.
It's battery-powered products.
So lithium-ion technology has come onto the game about ten years ago now.
And it's really changed the ability to have the power you need without a cord.
So what you see a lot of, and many of you may have these in your homes,
cordless drills, primarily are the largest category within this area.
And is a big, big opportunity for Bosch.
We believe that we want to push more and more cordless products out there.
And we also believe that our technology from a battery standpoint and
power tool standpoint is second to none.
So I hope that gives everyone a little bit of insight into the overall
Bosch tools business and the brand.
But I'm more than happy to answer any specific questions, if they're out there.
>> Thank you for that Somesh.
I know you were also mentioning that you also had a look at the kind
of questions that people are answering on the forum as well.
Not specifically related to this particular Hang Out.
We thank you for your interest in engaging so deeply with the students.
Could you give us an overview of the,
you mentioned you wanna share some information with the students.
Could you give us a preview of what you will be sending out?
>> Yes, the challenge for us a little bit, was on two sides.
One is, this is a lot more public than we normally share,
some of our positioning information etc.
So, we just had to kinda take some internal documents and
get them ready for external use.
Basically what we're gonna be doing is providing a overall Bosch positioning
strategy.
Some of the product lines that I just talked about
are core users that are in our realm.
And then a little bit about our distribution strategy, which I think is
important for this conversation as well, in terms of where and how we go to market.
So I'll be uploading a deck, I'm hoping to receive it today.
If I don't it will come tomorrow, but for the most part you should see that.
And again as soon as I post that,
please feel free to ask questions directly on the forum.
And I will answer as much as I can.
I've just been a little hesitant before we get some clearance on what we can
publicly present.
>> Eric thank you so much for that, we look forward to that.
So let's start with some of the more specific questions
that students have asked.
And Somesh and Reshma, you have the list open with you.
There are a few questions from Karen, and BT, and Holger.
If you want to just pick those and repeat the question that you are picking out.
And pick any of those you want to start with, we can go that way.
Somesh.
>> Yup. I'm gonna,
I'm looking through these right now.
>> Okay.
>> [SOUND] So, let's talk a little bit about a question from Karen
on competitive intelligence studies conducted by Bosch Power Tools.
If Karen is on the Hangout.
Could you just give me a little bit clarity on what exactly you're looking for
from a competitive intelligence standpoint?
>> Yeah, I was looking at the list of people.
And I don't see Karen on there.
So perhaps we can- >> Okay.
>> move on to the question, and answer that offline on the forum later.
>> Okay, yeah, so let me just talk a little bit about the competitive side.
I'll give you guys some information on what the competition for
the power tool segment looks like.
And I think from a Granger perspective, I can't speak as holistically on it.
But, from a power tools standpoint,
for the professional tools category, which we talked about.
There's about five major players in the market today.
The brands that exist in the marketplace are Dewalt,
Milwaukee, Makita, Bosch, and Hilti.
And those five probably make up the majority of today's market share.
For the most part, all five of them sell through the same distribution channels.
They are heavily utilized on multiple job sites.
What's interesting about the user in terms of market share And how they use products.
As we always say for the most part that power tool users tend to have
a rainbow of colors in their toolbox.
And so, if you walked into any job site today.
You'd see some DeWalt, you'd see some Milwaukee, you'd see some Bosch,
you'd see some Makita, you'd see some Hilti.
And what's really happened there is that each one of these power tool companies has
come from a strong heritage.
And their very well know in the trades for those heritage.
All of us are also trying to expand beyond those heritage categories for
ourselves to build share it in different categories.
And so, the competitive space right now is very, very heavy in the cordless segment.
And that's kind of one of the focus points that we've hit with Granger is,
how do we grow our cordless share with Granger specifically?
So, the idea there is to really kind of make sure that there's a large amount of
awareness of what Bosch brings to the table from a cordless standpoint.
What our technology can do.
And why it's useful for the Granger consumer.
Reshma you want to tackle another question?
>> Sure. Can you guys hear me?
Yeah, okay.
So just along the lines of what some of you have been saying really a focus of
category process cordless.
Especially when it comes to Granger, because Granger has the platform
to really support are online sales and online marketing.
And it all goes together.
So, I guess there's another question here from Karen,
talking about the voice, the customer in primary research.
Again, based on what I know, and what we can and cannot share.
I can say that we've definitely done a lot of work in the last couple years when it
comes to rebranding who we are in our North American market.
So for the US and for Canada, when we look at the North American market.
And we're really trying to understand, and
really understand what our users are looking for when it comes to power tools.
And what's really important to them.
And based on this like I said we sort of rebranded the way that we go in market.
And we mentioned our positioning when it comes to our users to make sure that
we're able to resonate with them.
What we're selling, why we're selling it, and then those important aspects of
the power tools and accessories, when it comes to that.
And to be able to not only communicate this in person with our sales force,
but also with the distribution level when it comes to Granger.
And being able to really sell who we are when it comes to you all the messaging and
marketing and the way we work onsite, offsite.
And all sorts of different marketing tactics, I would say.
>> Thank you Reshma.
And let's move on to another question that Beatty.
Beatty I apologize if I'm pronouncing your name wrong.
So her question which is number five on your list, talks about.
Does Bosch power tools know which sites clients go to after leaving your site?
I think she's basically looking for it they go to a competitor from your side.
Do you have that information?
>> What we know today, the answer is yes we have that information.
What I can share with you is that the majority of traffic.
Once it leaves Bosh Power Tools today, it goes to a retailer site.
And these retailers can include anything from a Home Depot to a Granger to a Lowe's
to a Amazon.
And most of the user, most of our traffic visits,
that get deep into our site.
So for example, just don't visit the homepage and leave.
Actually go out through a Buy Now.
So for example, if I maybe visit boschtools.com, and
you click on a product.
You'll see there's also the ability to purchase not directly from Bosch, but
through a retail partner.
And we see a significant amount of traffic actually,
feed its way through the Buy Now currently.
So the number one place I would answer is to retail.
Which is good for
us because we think that it's a very high intent level that people are coming with.
>> I think as a follow up to that there's a question live by Kevin Parker who says.
Is there any constraint to the Bosch-Granger
partnership to sort of limit the cannibalism.
And this also relates to a question,
a couple of questions that came up using the forum.
Is that are we really ignoring
Bosch's own retail efforts?
And I've restated that yes, for the context of our project.
We are only looking at Granger as the retail, or even if it's a B to B sale.
Granger is the outlet and we are sort of ignoring Bosch tools,
it's own retail strategy.
But, I guess this question is is there any constraint on that?
>> So we don't have a direct consumer arm for the Bosch Tools site today.
All of our products are sold through our retail partners.
From a distribution standpoint, Granger plays a very important role because of
the user that Granger has access to.
Not only maintenance repair and operational standpoint, but
a tremendous user reach into users that may not, let's say,
walk into a big box home center, for example to pick up their power tools.
So it's a very, very important strategy for
us to be able to access Granger's reach and Granger's service and
Granger's ability to kind of understand and own their consumers on a great scale.
So their users are heavy power tool users.
And therefore for this project, yes for sure,
obviously we're focusing on the Granger user.
But overall this is a strategy that we've invested very heavily in,
which is how do we access different user groups through our retail partners.
>> Thank you for that.
Let's take another question back from our list by Holger.
He's one of the already active users in the course.
So his question is what are the key decision criteria for
a customer to buy a power tool from Bosch and I think they might have
addressed some this in their initial discussion on Bosch as a brand.
So his question is again,
is the brand that makes quality service repair durability?
And a follow up on one of the key differentiators between you and
other competitors specifically on Granger.
So Bosch tools on Granger.
What is the differentiator between you and the competitors that Granger also sells.
>> Yeah, it's a good question.
I'll tackle it from the first side first, as an overall standpoint.
Bosch's value proposition is almost holistically about our product quality.
Our commitment to durability, reliability, and a really great engineered product.
That's something that has been a heritage element of ours,
and something that we've held very, very closely.
And this is Bosch overall, and I think that resonates.
When we talk to users about why they choose Bosch or
why they don't choose Bosch, in almost every single conversation
you have the users will say, oh I'd love to have Bosch tools.
They are the best.
Or they're the ones that we struck [INAUDIBLE].
Of, I don't know, I'm missing the right word right now, but
let's say they're the ones that people want to own.
When it comes to differentiating however, on Granger.com,
this is exactly one of the challenges that a lot of brand manufacturers,
face across industries, across different channels, right?
Because most retail partners want to build a very consistent experience for
their users.
And what that means is that they'll try to have certain specs or certain images or
certain layouts that they want to keep consistent to cross certain brands and
products to make their site very usable and searchable.
And this kind of hampers our ability to talk to the end user,
specifically about what makes our products better, right.
We also, from a competitive standpoint, you won't see a lot of direct competitive
approach in terms of saying this product does this better than that product.
We have a lot of compare functions, but mostly from the standpoint that you're
comparing things like price, you're comparing things like specs.
You're comparing things like weight, size, things like that.
So we make sure that we publish a tremendous amount of
product content out there, because the decision makers, the users who are buying
these products are sometimes interested in very, very different things.
And therefore we want to make sure that a user can make a very educated decision,
instead of trying to just look at the product image for
example and make a decision.
Especially the pro,
who cares a lot more in detail about the product they're buying.
So, I would say overall, there's an image around the brand that
we want to portray and that we do a very good job of doing on site.
But at the same time, the differentiators for product level detail are very,
very difficult.
Besides just the brand itself.
>> I think it is watching online and
she just added a clarification to her question that she
was actually requesting comments on competitors on the,
as a reference on the buy now option on the Bosch website,
and not competitors on Granger.
Touch on that for a minute.
>> Yeah, I can't directly answer your question about which is the largest
seller of Bosch Professional Tools, but I would say that the biggest competitors for
Granger from the Bosch side, you can look at the Home Depot,
Amazon, Lowes as three of the largest online competitors, right?
I would think that the offline business for
Granger doesn't have as much of a direct competition as the online site does.
>> Thank you for that.
I want to change tracks for a bit and move over to Professor Kevin Hartman here who,
thank you for taking the time to join us.
Kevin, I wondered, do you do,
share some thoughts on some questions that came up by students and
I shared them with you on emails specifically about when
they are looking at the consumer decision journey.
And using your excellent template of the plan collect and the analyze process.
And we are making them you know think through this in context to the problem
that Bosch and Granger have.
Some of the comments that came up was you know that in
some of the cases with their students are not able to find real data.
I know Granger was kind enough to share some last week.
So that's given them something to bite on.
But you have emphasized with yours as well you know the value of using open data.
So could you talk a little bit about that question that's come up a few times.
>> Absolutely, and it was wonderful to hear those questions.
Because it really meant that everyone was thinking about this the right way.
In this course, I think we have tried to teach, a couple things.
We've certainly taught skills, which are specific tasks and
over time as students get used to those tasks, they build acumen.
It's that sort of I've done this before, I can do this again.
We've also built a lot of theory.
Which is more just around helping students think through these kinds of problems.
We try to provide ways to think.
And over time as you experience that,
you'll be building intuition in that experience.
I have seen this before, I know what to do.
This kind of question, the kind of challenge that we put students in
front of, really does draw on both of those aspects.
It was a very difficult situation we put students into and we understood that, but
to be honest, it is pretty close to a real world situation.
You will never have all the information you want.
The information that you request, you will get parts of it.
Parts of it will come over time, just kind of clarifying your understanding and
building understanding.
Sonesh and Reshma have shown here, there are certain things that as a consultant
and particularly as a student in this situation.
You will not get access to, you just cannot have,
even though you would want it.
So what we've created here Is a situation where students who
are building that intuition and building those skills.
We're hoping that you can use some of the experiences you have
had in the past as well as the things that we have taught in the course.
And just learn along the way.
Yeah so, the challenge specifically
is to find sources of information for the things you want.
So that's two parts, it's not only knowing what it is you're looking for.
But it's also then having some experiences or
getting a sense for where those things lie.
Now that we spend a little bit of time in course stalking about specific
opportunities for data, right?
We talked about Google Trends, which could be relevant here.
We talked about Tweet Binder, we talked about Topsy.
We talked about a lot of resources.
There are even some that we didn't touch on I'm gonna think our relevant places.
Annual reports for
the companies compete.com can give some website in traffic overviews.
And then opportunities like this as we knew they would come open along the way.
So, I guess the answer, I understand the ambiguity.
And this is exactly as we talk about Avinash, a reading is part of the course.
Where he talked about poor data quality and what to do with that.
Now he's not only talking about data you receive that has errors in the data but
he is also talking about incomplete data.
And that is a very real world situation.
Where you're facing a situation where there's more that you would like, but
you don't have.
So there are places for students to look.
Some are that they are just going to have to dig and get a sense for
what is out there and what is available.
Probably even more importantly are some of those theories that
we've talked about in the course.
Which can help students determine what questions they should be asking and
what sort of things they should be looking for.
But all in all, as I said, it was gratifying.
I know how frustrating it can be for students.
But it was gratifying hearing those questions because people
are then absolutely thinking about this the right way.
>> Thank you for that perspective, Kevin.
And based on that feedback we got from the learners,
we did clarify the instructions a bit that You do look for open data sources.
But also list the sources that you would, sort of,
your ideal scenario you would hope to get access to.
And define what kind of an analysis you would do on the data.
Even if you don't have, you know, the full data from that source.
So you know, imagine that you would and so do a mix of what you,
your ideal scenario and what you have available and mix the two.
And say this is the kind of analysis I would do with this kind of objective.
And, then move on to the next part of the framework that we're having reviews.
So hopefully that clarification also helps student's build on this, week on week.
And I think your perspective on learning is very useful.
And fortunately we have, we are fortunate to have clients like Bosch-Granger
who are willing to get that feedback and share more information.
And so we are very thankful for that, as well.
So, let's move back onto a question by Ranjit, and Sonesh,
Reshma, you can decide whether you can answer that or not?
He's looking for some more specifics on the nature of data being
shared between Granger and Bosch.
>> Mh-hm. >> Specifically he was looking for.
Are you able to say very specifically so
that visitor X from some IP is looking for product Y?
>> So the answer to that second part is yes you could do that
from the technology stand point.
But, that's not what we're doing.
The data that [COUGH] the data that we're sharing with Granger right now
is holistically on anyone who has visited any section of boschtools.com
We are essentially allowing Granger to access that audience data.
Obviously, still they're anonymous not on a PII perspective, or
personal information perspective.
But purely on a cookie basis.
So, they're able to create an audience in their DMP and market to them.
So there's a, there's no personal data being shared.
All there is is browser level cookie data being shared.
And it's not on a product level either.
So, let's say we got a visitor on level two boschtools.com.
>> Thank you for that.
I think we have a question for Kevin.
So let's move to that.
Marcello is saying.
Kevin, can you see them on the screen?
I've selected that question.
>> I cannot. I'm sorry.
>> Okay.
If you can click on the Q and A button on the Hang Out screen,
that might pop up a panel.
>> Great. Yup.
>> So it's by Marcello.
Should be on the top.
So in a real world to gather data with some wrong buys.
You might have the market plan going towards the wrong result and spend.
What device, sorry.
What advice would you give us to avoid this bias?
>> Yeah it's an interesting question and and a very, very real challenge.
And we did spend some time talking about the different types of bias.
So, there are several ways that you can as
a consultant in the real world work to minimize bias.
The primary way is just ensuring that the survey instruments you're using,
surveys and other things that you've created to collect data, are free of bias.
They are leading the answers.
You are actually sampling from a representative set, that sort of thing.
In the case of publicly available data that you're collecting.
There's two ways that you can seek to minimize bias in the data set.
One of them is frankly just Increasing your sample size.
The more information you collect,
from more angles in at the problem.
The better your perspective is going to be In the last bias that that
perspective will include.
So for example, taking one data point or
one set of information form a single data source.
Say if you're looking at Twitter, could include bias as you start
to collect other views of Twitter from Topsy and tweet binder, and Analyze Words.
And all these other sources that we talked about.
You'll be able to triangulate into a more general understanding,
which should minimize your bias.
So that first way of minimizing bias is collecting more samples,
increasing your sample size.
The other way is frankly, just understanding the source.
And we talked about, as I said, various types of bias.
If you understand how bias gets into A data set.
Then if you understand how the data was collected at that source,
then you'll understand if there is bias or not.
If you can find out where that data set was collected.
For instance, let's just use Twitter again.
If you're looking at Twitter data, and you know that
the tweets are only collected from the most active members of Twitter or
the most highly regarded members of Twitter, that view on
the company you're analyzing will be somewhat skewed.
You want a more distributed, more representative sample.
So that second way then is just understanding how the data is collected.
Any site that offers data, e it Twitter data,
be it Facebook analysis, the Google site.
Certainly the Google Trend site and others will reveal how their data is collected.
There will be some sort of information on the source.
If you can understand how they have collected that data,
then you will be able to see, with your understanding of bias,
whether that data will be tainted or not.
So the two real ways of minimizing bias then are just increasing your sample set,
getting different views into the data that you're collecting.
And then also just frankly interrogating, if you will,
the data source to understand if it is a flawed source or
if it is something that has up front minimized its bias.
>> Thank you for that, Kevin.
Let's move back to a question for Bosch.
This is by Joshua and Joshua, I must say,
is a our super user in our Google community.
So he's pretty much keeping the Google+ community for this capstone alive.
Thank you for that, Joshua.
So his question is, based on the data that Grainger shared with us last week
it looks like, at least on the click-through rates and convergence,
the marketing objective of that pilot campaign seems to be met.
Is there a likelihood that Bosch or Grainger would look at [COUGH] new
campaigns with new partners and if there are any restrictions on that.
So that's Joshua's question.
>> [COUGH] The answer is yes, of course we wanna continue.
I think as you guys have probably seen and some of you have already, I know are on
digital marketing careers and some of you are learning for this first time.
But so much of this is about being able to constantly optimize and
constantly get better at campaigns utilizing data, right?
And this is kind of the [INAUDIBLE] of [INAUDIBLE] marketing in its
most simplistic form, is
being able to understand that there's a lot of different levers you can change.
Making sure that when you change something,
you understand the impact of that change.
Trying to have a theory on why that created a change, and
then being able to, in hopeful cases find a successful element that you
continue to drive your market with.
So, in this case the answer would be yes.
We would look into additional campaigns.
The question is, what do we wanna change, what do we wanna make better,
can we make it better?
And that's something that maybe Reshma can talk a little bit about as well from
a high level without giving you guys too much insight to where we're going.
But she's working directly on that.
>> So as Soni mentioned, I'm working directly with Grainger on this basically.
And what we've seen is, I would say yes our expectations have been met.
But in the sense of how to improve the campaign, we've looked at possibly using
different sort of graphics to capture a larger category versus having one tool or
one accessory that's highlighted in these campaigns.
We've looked at possibly doing this for other partners, but
the right partners, right.
We wouldn't wanna open it up to every one of our retail partners because we
would want to make sure that our investment is optimized essentially.
And when it also comes to Grainger, it's not just us kinda working on this,
it's working with them to make sure that we're hitting the right audience.
That we're marketing, or re-targeting I would say, the right categories.
When it comes to what Grainger users are specifically looking at when it come,
when they're looking at the different tools and accessory categories that own.
>> Okay, [COUGH] Thank you for that summation, Reshma.
Reshma, to add on [COUGH] excuse me.
I think later in the capstone we'll
ask the learners to come up with a content strategy as well.
With some pointers on what would their suggestions be
on what things to highlight, what sort of brand attributes to highlight.
I'm not sure to what extent,
we have asked them to look at giving some visuals as well, but I'm not sure where
that assignment will, that task, what kind of output that will give.
But hopefully, that'll also give some diverse perspectives from a global
audience on the message in the campaign that might help create more conversions.
So we look forward to that output from the students as well.
So let's move on to a couple of questions from Nina.
Both are focusing on the Bosch and Grainger relationships.
The first one talks about [COUGH] do prices on power
tools differ based on the outlet that you have?
So, and if not, sorry,
you see the question so- >> Yep, I can see it, yep.
So we don't have a, pricing is a very complicated topic so
I'm gonna try to simplify it to the point of this question.
We don't actively try to have a single partner have a better price position.
And when I mean partner is a retail partner.
So we don't actively try to have one partner have
a better pricing position than any other partner.
We think that it creates a very negative kind of approach in the market.
It also creates a level of competition that we're not
trying to be a necessary part of.
What we do do, and we do this kind of retail partner agnostic, are promotions.
So for example, for a certain time period we may offer $10 off a certain product.
And we allow all of our partners to have access to these promotions.
Specifically to help drive sales up from a user side.
But we don't say, Grainger, here is a specific price for you for your users.
Especially with the level of transparency that online brings.
Also there's antitrust issues with that.
So we actively stay away from pricing at a retail partner.
We give them a price and we offer them a book of promotions as well.
And maybe to your second question, I can read it out loud here.
It says, I noticed that not all power tools available on Bosch website could be
purchased through Grainger.
Why, is that something you'd be looking to in the future?
A wider product line should increase the traffic to those loyal to the Bosch brand.
So great question, and really this is what we call really an assortment.
Question.
Grainger and though they can maybe speak to it next time they're on,
but Grainger obviously has to support thousands of different vendors
not only from a website perspective in terms of listing them.
But from a fulfillment standpoint, and
overall management standpoint therefore Grainger has to have a managed assortment.
So they have to think about their users and what their users need and
supply products accordingly.
From our side, we want to make sure that Grainger
is stocking those products that we think are very relevant to their user base.
Because they may not have the time, and energy, and effort to look
at every single product we have and say yes, that's relevant, yep, no it's not.
So there's quite a bit of process to this that happens all the time, which for
example, if we launch a new product we present it to Grainger.
We communicate its benefits, and
Grainger makes a decision whether or not they think it's right for their user base.
And if it is, they can list it on their site, or
they can bring it into their stores, and
they can decide on what their inventory and assortment strategy will look like.
>> Thank you for that, and
I think we are done with all of the questions for the hangout.
Any closing thoughts?
First Kevin.
>> I think we're all just really excited to see what students are producing.
I think that this has been, we knew a very difficult challenge to
put in front of them, but something that I think they'll learn a great deal from.
It's just exciting to see what they're coming up with.
>> All right, yeah, thank you Kevin for
your willingness to keep addressing student questions.
Bosch, sorry, Sonasha Beshma over to you.
>> I think, like I said in the first place, on the first hangout,
I think this is one of the most interesting courses that I've ever seen.
I'm very envious of many of the students.
And I know many of you reached out to me on LinkedIn, I think, please continue to.
If you guys want to have a separate discussion on some of these topics,
I'm more than happy to engage.
But yeah it is, something that Kevin said is really, really true, that
we don't have a lot of information, not in some cases that we just can't share, but
in other cases, you have to make decisions without
a full portfolio of data, and that is truly, truly, truly, the real world.
And especially if you want to be fast, and you want to be oriented in the market.
You have to be able to kind of take some pieces of data formulate an opinion, and
be able to execute on that.
And I think this course is going to teach many of you,
the reality of what data may look like versus maybe a textbook.
So, thank you guys for having us on.
>> I know you were a student not far back in the MBA.
So, what are your perspectives on this kind of an excise,
and this kind of involvement with you being on the industry side now?
>> That it coming, and as somebody mentioned, really day in and day out,
we have to make assumptions, sometimes and we're not given all the data that we want.
And so this type of class really does teach you to kind of formulate everything
based on everything that you may have, and make some assumptions.
And you have to go to the market with that strategy that you're able to come up with.
And for Charles, you mentioned, I was a student not too long ago.
I graduated in May of 2013.
And it's these types of classes, the [INAUDIBLE] type of
coursework that really helps differentiate you from the rest of the world.
And having U of I and this class under your belt will really help you
when it comes time to looking for jobs.
It's work like this that you're able to present and talk about.
And set yourself again, set yourself apart from the rest of the students that are out
there, maybe competing for the same jobs.
>> Well, thank you everyone for taking the time to be on the call.
There's some other questions that have popped up, but I'll put them on the forum,
and perhaps we can take them offline.
So thank you again and happy holidays to the families and
to all the listeners who are watching us live, thank you.
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