J C Penney
Bill Inmon
Founder, Chairman, CEO, Best-Selling Author, University of Denver & Scalefree Advisory Board Member
J C Penney
By W H Inmon
This morning I saw a headline – J C Penney Heading Toward Bankruptcy.
I could not but help think about a (very true) story.
Many years ago, in the first days of data warehouse, I was invited to have a conversation with the CEO and the CIO of J C Penney Catalog organization. I was told that I had 30 minutes to speak. And I was told – “whatever you do, don’t do a technical presentation.”
So, I carefully prepared a presentation just for the CEO. The presentation was on three things –
Expanding revenue
Finding more customers
Reducing expenses.
I came into the room. Everyone was polite. I did my presentation.
At the end of my presentation, the CEO said to me –
“Thank you Bill for your presentation. It was interesting. But you see at J C Penney those aren’t the things we are interested in.”
The CEO of J C Penney told me that his company was not interested in –
Making more money
Having more customers
Reducing expenses
What in the world was J C Penney interested in?
I came home and asked my wife if we had any stock in J C Penney. If we did, we should sell it immediately.
(Unfortunately, every word of this story is true.)
It took a long time for J C Penney to die.
But they reaped the seeds that they sowed.
They made their decisions. Now they have to live with the choices they made.
Bill Inmon is the author of TURNING TEXT INTO GOLD, Technics Publications, HEARING THE VOICE OF YOUR CUSTOMER, Technics Publications, and DATA ARCHITECTURE:SECOND EDITION, Elsevier. In addition, with textual ETL Bill’s company can read text and turn text into a standard data base.
Data & AI Architect at Microsoft
4 年A sad tale for sure. Here are my guesses as to what the CEO might really have been interested in, in no particular order: ? How can I cook the books so that we don't pay taxes? ? How can I artificially inflate our stock price so that I get that bonus? ? Where is the best place to eat tonight? ? How can I groom this company for acquisition? ? Show us how to get free money without effort, or better yet, could you just bring it to us?
Visionary Leader | Driving Business Objectives through Technology and Innovation
4 年It was literally run into the ground through lack of innovation. Hope you’re well Bill!
Strategic Account Executive @ Databricks (ex-Snowflake, ex-Microsoft)
4 年Brian McGregor
Data & Analytics Practice Leader | Solution Sales | Partner Development
4 年Bill Inmon what did they really say they were interested in? I am curious.
Business Transformation Professional @ Schaffer Solutions | Business Technology Leader
4 年That's certainly counterintuitive; however, I've experienced many situations where clients pay our consultants to advise and then reject said advice because it doesn't align with their presumptions. Having worked for JC Penny one summer in college, I'm not all that surprised.