COFFEE WITH: RANDY MATTRAN
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How did you get to be an IT guy?
I ended up going to work for one of the small consulting companies, not unlike Lancet. It was called Hopper Associates [in Michigan]. Paul Hopper was the principal there. And they had this little client up in Minnesota called 3M. I was the next guy up for that project opportunity, and I moved up here and have been here ever since.
Where did you go after Hopper Associates?
One of the senior guys at Hopper spun off of Hopper. That was Dick York. He started York Associates. That's where I began managing engagements, professional services, consulting work and really kind of found a passion for connecting the craft of building large applications and large data bases with the business side of delivering that for money.
How did you link up with Best Buy?
[A friend] called up and said, "Do you know anybody that would be a really good data warehousing manager for Best Buy?" I said, "Scott, I've got a great candidate -- me."
When did you go to Best Buy?
Summer of 2001. That was the first time I had ever been an end-user IT guy. I'd never had that internal responsibility. I now have a much better appreciation for the contribution these guys make. I understand how difficult their job is.
What does a data warehousing director do?
We were collecting all the transactions and all the data from all the operational systems that would do their batch processing overnight, and we would collect that information, synthesize it, aggregate it, do some analytics and publish new information and ideally have it ready to go when the store opened in the morning.
What happened to your job?
The Accenture transformation was actually pretty exciting ... transforming the IT group that was internal to Best Buy, moving all those people to Accenture, bringing in some Accenture expertise and processes to help make things even more efficient. I became an Accenture employee.
So why leave?
This was July of 2004 when the outsourcing happened. I had always thought of myself as going back to those early days when I was working for the small consulting company -- high quality, smart people, great client relationships. I really admired the Paul Hopper/Dick York figure, and I thought someday I was going to be like them. I found myself approaching my 50s thinking, when am I going to be the Paul Hopper or Dick York? I had been a client of Lancet's almost since they started. Tom Niccum [CEO of Lancet] and I had lunch.
You got a piece of the action at Lancet?
I'm an equal partner with the four founders, but I need to earn in. I have to influence a certain amount of revenue over time to be fully vested. At that point I'll be exactly where I want to be -- a full and equal partner with the kind of firm I always wanted to build up myself. Instead of having to build my house, I can turn the key and walk in.
No downside from going from a big organization to small?
No covered parking, and the cafeteria is a little lame here. Probably the big thing that goes away is the multimillion-dollar resource pool that the big companies have. I can't write a million-dollar check, but I can ask the client to do that.
Is Best Buy a client?
I can't work personally with Best Buy because of a noncompete. When you leave Accenture, you cannot work with the companies you served in a similar way for a period of 12 or 18 months. I can't solicit business from Best Buy. But Lancet can. And we have a team of people there today.
What does Lancet do for Best Buy?
The whole customer-centricity initiative within Best Buy, to help understand more about what individual segments of customers want and need and how Best Buy can better serve them. That was all my team at Best Buy and that was all Lancet.
Lancet has been around seven years? How has it grown?
About 20 percent a year.
No bitterness toward Best Buy?
It was the right thing to do for Best Buy. It had to prepare itself for the new wave of competition it expects to get as the Wal-Marts and the Dells and the Amazons begin to invade Best Buy's space. If Best Buy's going to stay healthy long term, they have to prepare themselves and position themselves financially and from a systems perspective to be ready to compete in that league, and the Accenture outsourcing is the right thing to do.
Larry Werner is at werner@startribune.com.
Position:
Vice president and part owner of Lancet Software in Burnsville.
In the News
Mattran was a senior manager for information technology at Best Buy, which decided to outsource most of its information-technology staff to Accenture, a large consulting company. Mattran initially joined Accenture, but last month he traded life at a large corporation for an ownership stake in a seven-year-old company with 22 employees and $3 million in annual sales.