January 23, 2020

A File Power Lesson From 2000 - 2001

Here are two cases where I leveraged File Power, quite possibly to the detriment of my career.

In February 2000 I was able to use my File Power methodology to demonstrate that the Online channel ... E-Commerce ... would overpower catalog marketing, rendering it at best a secondary channel. I presented my findings to a team of Executives from Eddie Bauer, Spiegel, and Newport News. It was the only time I can remember being laughed out of a room. Within two years the parent company (Spiegel) would be bankrupt, and Eddie Bauer would go bankrupt a second time seven years later. 

The second time I had to make a business case regarding the importance of File Power was in the Fall of 2001. Our call center was experiencing -25% comps while the online channel was thriving. The President of the online/catalog division (my boss) crafted an analysis that fit perfectly into the File Power framework ... he wanted to see what happened in the future when you converted a call center customer to an online customer. Well guess what? The customer shifted future behavior ... the recent/modern online purchases had no impact on future call center purchases ... there was no call center File Power generated when a customer bought online ... quite the contrary ... call center customer recency fell, causing call center File Power to decline. Four years later (yes, it takes a while in the business world to change) the catalog was discontinued and sales increased and profit surged ... a response to understanding the impact of File Power.

If you apply the results of File Power properly, you greatly improve business performance.

You also teach Professionals how your customers behave.

File Power impacts just about everything we do. 

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