Moneyball and the Automotive Aftermarket on AftermarketAnalytics.com

February 2, 2012

I recently made a post on the aftermarketanalytics.com blog on Moneyball & the Automotive Aftermarket. Please check it out and, as always, leave a comment and let me know what you think! Just to give you an idea of what the article is all about, here are the first couple paragraphs:

“I recently watched the movie Moneyball starring Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill. It was a good movie and it made me think about parallels with the Automotive Aftermarket.

In Moneyball, a bold GM for the cash-strapped Oakland A’s begins using a flavor of analytics called Sabermetrics to identify undervalued baseball players who can help the team win without breaking the bank. Despite resistance from baseball’s old-school veterans, the approach is successful and the A’s overachieve by posting a winning season despite a payroll that is dwarfed in comparison to the New York Yankees and most of the rest of the league.

The use of analytics now seems to be firmly established as an important component in professional baseball management. Sabermetrics doesn’t replace the need for veterans of the game who can identify talent and the intangibles that make great baseball players and winning baseball teams, but it does add a critical and previously missing element to the business of baseball. I see the Automotive Aftermarket embarking on a similar journey in the coming years, although I’m not expecting Brad Pitt to star as the CEO of NAPA in a blockbuster movie anytime soon..”

Justin

Justin Holman is CEO of Aftermarket Analytics, where he leads efforts to develop cutting edge sales forecasting and inventory optimization technology for the Automotive Aftermarket. Prior to joining Aftermarket Analytics, Justin managed corporate consulting for the Strategy & Analytics division at MapInfo Corporation, leading major projects for retail clients including The Home Depot, Darden Restaurants, Bridgestone-Firestone, Sainsbury’s and New York & Company. Before that, Justin served as Vice President of Software Development at LogicTools, now part of IBM's supply chain application software group. Justin holds a B.A. from Claremont McKenna College, a Ph.D. from the University of Oregon and an Executive Management certificate from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.

3 Comments


Joel Butler 12 years ago

I was involved in a system implementation of Demantra — an Oracle product that uses sales history, marketing investment and top-down goals to do a sort-of Monte Carlo analysis/projection of what’s going to happen in the consumer products field. You might give it a look.

I noticed that same thing you did with hardware stores…I can almost quote a relative who owned one…”no one knows my inventory and customers better than I do”.
- Reply
  
  justinholman 12 years ago
  
  Joel, thanks for the comment! I’m aware of Demantra and have implemented an inventory optimization project with Demantra as a source of data for comparison. Problem with Demantra is that it’s no help at all absent sales history, e.g., new store location or new number announcement. Plus I think it costs an arm and leg. Your relative is correct – no one can beat the “boots on the ground” but they can do a better job with the help of some data and analytics. Our inventory recommendations are always posted in a web portal where store managers can over-ride if their market knowledge tells them that a particular SKU will behave in a way that the data can’t predict.

Speaking this week at the Global Automotive Aftermarket Symposium | Geographical Perspectives 12 years ago

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