Winfried Ebner

 

Email: webner@gmx.de

 

 

 

Final Report (10/00 – 01/01)

 

 

Internship in Marketing

 

Eddie Bauer, Inc.
PO Box 97000
Redmond, WA 98073-9700

Phone: 425 882-6100

Fax: 425 882 6383

 

 

 

 

January 18, 2001

                                                Winfried Ebner (Intern)             John Rublaitus (Supervisor)

Director of Customer Value Management

 

 

 

Table of Contents

 

 

1       Occupational Experiences.................................................................................................................................... 3

1.1     The Company................................................................................................................................................................ 3

1.1.1      Eddie Bauer, Inc...................................................................................................................................................... 3

1.1.2      The Department: Customer Value Management............................................................................................... 3

1.2     The Work........................................................................................................................................................................ 4

1.2.1      General Experiences.............................................................................................................................................. 4

1.2.2      Interviews................................................................................................................................................................. 4

1.2.3      Project: Improving the Circulation Decision Model with Visual Basic....................................................... 4

1.2.4      Project: Developing a Direct Mail Strategy to support retail stores............................................................ 5

1.2.5      Typical Workday..................................................................................................................................................... 5

1.2.6      Eddie Bauer University and Statistical Classes............................................................................................... 5

2       Social Experiences...................................................................................................................................................... 5

2.1     Housing............................................................................................................................................................................ 5

2.2     Transportation........................................................................................................................................................ 6

2.3     Leisure.............................................................................................................................................................................. 6

2.4     Costs................................................................................................................................................................................. 7

3       Recommendation.......................................................................................................................................................... 7

 

1          Occupational Experiences

1.1         The Company

1.1.1          Eddie Bauer, Inc.

Eddie Bauer, Inc. offers distinctive clothing, accessories and home furnishing for today’s active, casual lifestyle. In its 80-year history, Eddie Bauer has evolved from a single store in Seattle to an international company with more than 570 stores, 11 million catalogs and a variety of web sites (eddiebauer.com, eddiebaueroutlet.com, eddiebauerhome.com and eddiebauerkids.com). Eddie Bauer operates in the U.S. and Canada, and through joint venture partnerships in Japan and Germany.

In 1988 Spiegel, another large American catalog retailer, acquired Eddie Bauer. The German based company Otto Versand owns Spiegel Inc.

It is unlikely to find a comparable Company in Germany, because Eddie Bauer has the unique challenge to serve their customers through the three channels: Catalog, Retail and I-Media. In order to respond to this challenge Eddie Bauer was restructured recently in the following way:

 

 

 

1.1.2          The Department: Customer Value Management

I have been working in the Customer Value Management (CVM) Department, a subdivision of the Marketing Group. The Group’s mission statement is “to maximize customer productivity and profitability through contact management in all channels.” The responsibilities of the group entail the management of multi-channel contact strategies (evolution of direct contact management), the growth of Eddie Bauer direct business, the strategic long range and short term planning and the direct marketing support for retail events to drive traffic. The team consists of 12 people – one director (my supervisor), two managers (Sportswear and Home/Outlet), assistant managers and marketing analysts.

 

1.2         The Work

1.2.1          General Experiences

During the first few days my supervisor gave me his approach of what an intern has to accomplish. He emphasized that he did not want me to simply deal with ‘busy-work’ or learn how the copy-machine works, no – I started in the department with ‘just’ shadowing him every minute of his day in order to get an overview of the problems and challenges he has to deal with. I could ask every question I wanted and got a satisfactory reply. Sometimes my curiosity led into a kind of lecture of how Americans “do their business”.

For these reasons I can say that this internship was a great experience for me. Below I want to focus on some specific tasks I had to deal with.

1.2.2          Interviews

During the first weeks I spoke with each person in the group for an hour. I got an overview of the things they were doing daily and started understanding the structure of the department. As a result of these interviews I created a flowchart of the “Book Development Process”, which included every function of the CVM-Group to complete a catalog and the associates, who are responsible for these functions.

1.2.3          Project: Improving the Circulation Decision Model with Visual Basic

My first project was to automate a decision making process in an Excel spreadsheet, which facilitates our Circulation Decision Model. It took me a while to understand which variables we were using to calculate the profit of a catalog. By working with these documents I got a better understanding of how we answer the basic business questions: How many people should we mail to?  What kind of books should we mail them?

 

1.2.4          Project: Developing a Direct Mail Strategy to support retail stores

Within this project I got the chance to seek out a way of introducing new ideas to the company. I learned that you do not only have to have the right ideas, but also the ability to communicate these ideas to the right persons in an appropriate (different) way within the company. The new Direct Mail Strategy modified the former strategy, which was not very successful. In order to communicate to Eddie Bauer customer segments differently, we defined three groups of customers (new, current and lapsed) and set up their different communication strategies.

1.2.5          Typical Workday

I am glad to say there was no typical workday. Challenges were changing from week to week. The only constant was the request that the intern had to question the work and how the work was done within the department. Sometimes the results of such questions were further tasks, which I had to take care of.

1.2.6          Eddie Bauer University and Statistical Classes

Besides my work in the department, I enrolled in several classes at the Eddie Bauer University, an internal educational center of Eddie Bauer. I took classes in “Visio”, “Time Management” and “Building effective working relationships” to improve my practical knowledge besides the tenets within the Marketing department. I also spent a day working in a retail store, which gave me experience working with Eddie Bauer customers. Prior to working in the store, I had only worked with customers in the conceptional development of marketing programs. Interacting with them one to one was a new dimension of experience for me.

To improve the knowledge of statistics within our group, my supervisor started a weekly class giving a basic introduction to the application and interpretation of statistical analyses in the social sciences. Due to business demands many of these classes were cancelled. But nevertheless I got a good recap of my first year studies at the university.

 

2          Social Experiences

2.1         Housing

My first approach was to find an accommodation in Seattle while still staying in Germany. With the help of the HR department of Eddie Bauer I found a pretty expensive guesthouse at Capitol Hill. When I arrived in Seattle, I spent the first couple of days searching for a new accommodation and finally I found one in the University District by simply asking a salesgirl in a shop. The “normal” way would be to search through the local newspapers, especially on Saturdays, or watch out for the classifieds in the local newspapers “www.seattletimes.com” and “www.seattle-pi.com”. Another very good source to find information is “http://www.seattleinsider.com”.

Generally speaking accommodation is expensive. For the first location I paid $ 675/month. It was a B&B style guesthouse that was very clean and tidy. By moving to the University District I cut my rent by almost half and paid $ 360/month excluding phone costs. It was a house with 6 rooms, a shared kitchen and a shared bath. Something in between these two rates should be reasonable for temporary lodging in Seattle-Area. The terms of the rental was paying the first and the last month and a refundable damage deposit of $ 200 in advance.

2.2         Transportation

Seattle is one of few cities on the West Coast, which has a good public transportation. Because Seattle traffic is very bad, it is a good idea to use public transportation. Almost all highways have a mass transit lane. Therefore it is faster to take the bus than a car from Seattle to Redmond during the rush hour. Eddie Bauer subsidizes buying bus passes and covers half of the costs; therefore I paid $30/month for public transportation.

2.3         Leisure

Seattle is a big city with a wide variety of possibilities to spend free time. Each district has its own culture. Therefore I can recommend choosing your accommodation within the district you want to go out in. Capitol Hill for example is well known for a multitude of clubs with live music, playing almost every evening. By living in the University District it is easier to find good dining locations with reasonable prices. Furthermore, there are many unique cafes located around “The Ave”, the main street of the district.

On weekends I had the possibility to take some trips with my supervisor. We spent a relaxing weekend hiking and camping at Mt. Rainier, had an interesting drive to the Pacific Ocean and visited the Bavarian Village Leavenworth, located in the Cascade Mountains of Washington.

I watched ice hockey games and basketball games at Key Arena, visited several museums (the best one: SAAM – Seattle Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park) and covered most of the tourists attractions, including the Space Needle, Pike Place Market and the waterfront area.

By making some friends in the University District I could sample student life. For example, I attended a weekly Salsa dancing class with some University students, which I enjoyed a lot.

I started exploring the city by my own with the Lonely Planet Book for Seattle (www.lonelyplanet.com), which I can highly recommend. Another good source of information are the two independent and free weekly newspapers,  “The Stranger” (www.thestranger.com) and “Seattle Weekly” (www.seattleweekly.com).  Both newspapers give a detailed overview of the cultural life and activities within the city.

2.4         Costs

Monthly expenses (estimated):

 

Rent	$ 360
Add. Costs like phone / washing etc.	$ 70
Food	$ 100
Bus pass	$ 30
Entrance fees, tickets, etc	$ 100
Total	$ 660

 

 

 

3          Recommendation

Explore this lovely place by yourself. There are few places in the U.S. where you get such a combination of a big city life and an unbelievable nature that is just a one-hour drive away. I was lucky to visit Seattle during a dry fall season, but normally it is a good idea to skip the rainiest months of October till February.