Subject: Telfer School Moves Into The Desmarais Building Solution
1.What are the main differences between the buying decision process described in this case and the consumer buying decision process described in Chapter 6, Consumer Behavior?
The information research and evaluation of alternatives are using money from a lot of resources, and as a result a lot of people get the benefit. Hence, not an individual process. Therefore it takes many people’s contributions along the process as well. The purchase and consumption processes show that the school tends to do bulk buying with formal RFP to make the process goes faster yet smoothly (since it is costly and a big project). In the end, the school stays loyal to some products at certain price in order of the postpurchase process.

2.Identify the members of the buying centre for the office furniture purchases. What roles did each play? How did their roles influence the ultimate purchase decision?
Moriyama Teshima, is the initiator and influencer. He represents the architecture of the building by recommending how the building should be designed. The influencer roles are the University’s Physical Resources and University’s Materials Management Department’s representatives. Their part as influencers are to support and give internal informations to Moriyama. The representatives of Telfer school are the buyer. They are in charge of collecting funds and how to spend it. The user and the gatekeeper are students, teachers, staff, and insurance from suppliers (people that have or had activities that are involved in the school community).

3.In what way does the buying decision process described in this case for the furniture and fixtures conform or depart from the buying process?
The school is using the centralized purchase decision for the product specifications and RFP process. The school selected 5 vendors, for 5 years contract to be the school’s suppliers for proposal analysis, Vendor negotiation and supplier selection. This contract enables the later purchases to be easier with a decentralized purchase decision.

4.How would you classify the various purchase decisions described in the case? Explain the rationale