tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32202893.post4183778493312938271..comments2023-10-18T08:32:17.510-07:00Comments on Kevin Hillstrom: MineThatData: Leaving Lands' EndUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32202893.post-4107790708511621032007-02-27T10:52:00.000-08:002007-02-27T10:52:00.000-08:00Well, isn't it interesting how various events end ...Well, isn't it interesting how various events end up impacting other individuals at other companies?<BR/><BR/>You'll be happy to know that Mr. Dyer is now on the Board of Directors at Chicos: <BR/><BR/>http://www.retailnet.com/story.cfm?ID=35326Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32202893.post-52864525047524966352007-02-25T04:39:00.000-08:002007-02-25T04:39:00.000-08:00Right around the same time (and perhaps as a resul...Right around the same time (and perhaps as a result of the changes at Land’s End), the powers that be at Home Shopping Network brought in a gent named Dyer to “rebuild the brand”. We had been through this kind of thing before and presented data highlighting what typically happened to the business when some of the changes Dyer wanted to make were implemented. We were tossed out of the Exec office labeled as “old school HSN” and “lacking vision”. But we were “right”.<BR/><BR/>Over the next several years, we presented “warning” data showing what was happening as a result of the changes and made suggestions on how to modify the new strategy so it would be successful. We were ignored. The new strategy destroyed the customer base and HSN almost went bankrupt. When that regime was broomed we presented all this to new management, along with a comprehensive solution – we knew exactly what happened and how to fix it.<BR/><BR/>The following years were the “glory days” as all the KPI’s (profit per minute, LTV, % 1x buyers) gradually came up from the cellar to meet and then surpass the HSN pre-Dyer. Along the way, we did some remarkable work on the cannibalization of the TV channel by the mail order channel, and how to fix it so that catalog was a truly incremental business to television, extending the LifeCycle of best TV customers and turning 1x TV buyers into multi-buyers in catalog.<BR/><BR/>But the great CEO who led this change and believed in us fell ill and had to leave. We presented a great strategic plan to the next one: based on what we had learned about the TV / catalog synergy and the under-utilization of the HSN fulfillment infrastucture, HSN should go out and purchase other catalog companies in various niches. With TV driving new customers to the books, and with almost entirely variable fulfillment costs, we would flip the traditional catalog model on its head and drive great margins to the bottom line. <BR/><BR/>The next CEO did not have a background in “this database marketing hocus pocus” and thought business improvement it was all about the TV show; they were going to spend millions on pretty TV sets instead of database marketing. This despite the hard evidence our knowledge and strategy was instrumental in bringing HSN back from the brink of bankruptcy. Our ideas were rejected and as the VP on point for all this, I got fired, mostly because I kept proving to them how “stupid” pursuing the TV strategy would be. <BR/><BR/>HSN’s productivity peaked sometime in the next 6 months and has been going down ever since. We were “right”, again. And I’m very proud of that.<BR/><BR/>I think every analytical culture goes through this kind of thing. Personally, I simply cannot stick around in a place that is going to ignore facts. If management chooses to go in a “softer” direction, that’s fine, but they are going to do it without me. Otherwise, there is simply no point in working as hard as we do to optimize a business model.<BR/><BR/>At every level, there are analysts who have seen their version of this. It’s the marketing analyst who is pressured to “make the campaign look better”, the operations analyst that is directed to track a KPI they know is not really meaningful but looks good, and so on . There will always be “pressure” on the providers of facts to bend the rules. So as an analyst or a manager of them, you simply have to decide what you are going to do if you are right and “they” are wrong. Will you fight for what you believe in and accept the risk that entails, including finding new employment? Or will you simply say “Yes sir!” and torture the data until it says want someone wants it to say?<BR/><BR/>I simply cannot do the latter. And I’m glad to see you can’t either. I would rather be “right” and looking for a job in a company that respects my work than sit around and watch a company destroy itself. I can’t take that kind of pain.<BR/><BR/>P.S. HSN has bought out several catalog companies in the past several years...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com