President of Steinway reveals keys to success

YSU is one of only 40 schools to use nothing but Steinway pianos.
By DON SHILLING
VINDICATOR BUSINESS EDITOR
YOUNGSTOWN -- Bruce Stevens acknowledges he raised a few eyebrows when he became president of Steinway & amp; Sons, the renowned piano maker.
"You may wonder how a guy could go from Polaroid to Steinway. When I did that in 1985, a lot of people said the same thing," Stevens told a group of business students Friday at Youngstown State University.
The 61-year-old executive came to YSU to commemorate its becoming the world's 40th "All-Steinway School."
YSU's Dana School of Music received 68 new Steinway and Boston pianos this summer and now uses nothing but Steinway products. The $837,000 project, which also included rebuilding 10 Steinway pianos, was funded by student fees, private donations and the sale of previous pianos.
Before joining Steinway, Stevens was director of international marketing for Polaroid. He went from promoting inexpensive cameras and film to leading a company that sells pianos costing $40,000 or more.
Strong brand identity
Though the companies were vastly different in pricing, distribution and manufacturing, they had one similarity -- strong brand names, he said.
Stevens told the students that Polaroid may not mean much to them, but in the 1960s and 1970s "the word was magic." The company had tens of thousands of dealers and was practically minting money, he said. It slipped into bankruptcy in 2001 and today operates as a smaller company.
Polaroid allowed its brand identity to diminish, Stevens said. He was determined not to let that happened to Steinway, which has been making pianos since 1851.
"Strategically, Polaroid made some tragic mistakes," he said.
Senior executives didn't see that the world was changing and other technology was replacing its self-developing film, he said. They didn't support researchers working on new inventions and didn't try to expand into new markets, he said.
Stevens said that when he came to Steinway he found that the products were still top-notch, but corporate officials had become lackadaisical and sloppy.
His first task was to persuade everyone to begin working together and to implement strategic planning to prevent the Steinway brand from becoming a historic footnote.
"At Steinway, we live, eat and breathe strategic planning. It never starts and it never stops," he said.
The top priority has been to protect the quality of the "goose that laid the golden egg" -- the elegant, black grand piano -- while also expanding into other areas, he said. Steinway now makes limited-edition pianos with special finishes and replicas of pianos made years ago.
Gamble paid off
Its boldest move came in 1992 with the introduction of a midpriced line of pianos, the Boston line, Stevens said. These pianos gave dealers quality pianos at a different price point. The key, Stevens said, was being upfront with the public that these pianos were designed by Steinway but mass-produced by a Japanese company. Steinways are handcrafted in New York City and Germany.
Stevens acknowledged that he was "scared to death" when Steinway launched the Boston line because it was its first move beyond the Steinway line. But the models have been so successful that other companies use it as a case study, he said.
Jaguar, for example, met extensively with Steinway officials before launching its S-type cars, a more affordable line, he said.
shilling@vindy.com