Monday, November 15, 2004
No Surprise Here
Hurricane Frances was on its way, threatening a direct hit on Florida. Far away, in Bentonville, Ark., executives at Wal-Mart Stores decided the situation offered a chance to use one of their newest data-driven weapons, predictive technology.
A week ahead of landfall, Linda Dillman, Wal-Mart's chief information officer, pressed her staff to come up with forecasts based on what had happened when Hurricane Charley struck weeks earlier. The experts mined the data and found that the stores would indeed need certain products - and not just flashlights.
'We didn't know in the past that strawberry Pop-Tarts increase in sales, like seven times their normal sales rate, ahead of a hurricane,' Dillman said. 'But the pre-hurricane top-selling item was beer.'
The RBR considers this a wise use of resources. Under extreme duress people must find a way to relax and beer is certainly a nice relaxation technique. Bird would like to remind the readers that "beer is not the answer." Beer is actually the question. "Yes," is the answer.
Read all about it
A week ahead of landfall, Linda Dillman, Wal-Mart's chief information officer, pressed her staff to come up with forecasts based on what had happened when Hurricane Charley struck weeks earlier. The experts mined the data and found that the stores would indeed need certain products - and not just flashlights.
'We didn't know in the past that strawberry Pop-Tarts increase in sales, like seven times their normal sales rate, ahead of a hurricane,' Dillman said. 'But the pre-hurricane top-selling item was beer.'
The RBR considers this a wise use of resources. Under extreme duress people must find a way to relax and beer is certainly a nice relaxation technique. Bird would like to remind the readers that "beer is not the answer." Beer is actually the question. "Yes," is the answer.
Read all about it
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