Set in Stone

Abstract

In 2013, the new general manager at Dominion Granite and Marble (DGM), a successful Virginia granite-fabrication company, was convinced DGM would benefit from substantially speeding up its sales process. Getting quotes in the hands of potential customers quickly was the first step. In particular, a new website with online quotation capabilities would go a long way toward capitalizing on the traffic DGM's website already experienced and give the company a competitive edge. The only question was how quickly the website could be developed and at what price. Excerpt UVA-QA-0814 Feb. 11, 2014 SET IN STONE It was a new dawn for Dominion Granite and Marble (DGM). The Virginia granite-fabrication company had a vibrant new owner, an established client base, and a devoted group of employees. And with the addition of 27-year-old Elizabeth Tang, it had a new general manager excited about the company's challenges. These challenges merged her engineering background with the MBA education she was two months shy of completing at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. Given all she had learned about the fabrication industry since she took over on January 1, 2013, Tang was convinced DGM would benefit from substantially speeding up its sales process. Getting quotes in the hands of potential customers quickly was the first step. In particular, a new website with online quotation capabilities would go a long way toward capitalizing on the traffic DGM's website already experienced. Such website capabilities would also offer the company a competitive edge. The only question was how quickly the website could be developed and at what price. Meanwhile, on the opposite coast, Arup Banerjee was also excited about his career trajectory. Like Tang, he was two months away from his MBA graduation from the Haas School of Business at the University of California. The build-up toward finishing his degree and being able to devote 100% of his time to growing his website-design firm was great. DGM was the perfect client. This project would allow his firm, CD SEO, to demonstrate capabilities associated with linking a firm's customer relationship management (CRM) and back-office systems to its website. This capability would open the door to working with other service providers. . . .