 JD Power. PHOTO: Bloomberg |
The founder of high-powered marketing information firm JD Power and Associates credits an early report about the US forklift market with providing an impetus for his nascent firm.
James David Power III, then 37, and his wife, Julie, established the business at their kitchen table in 1968.
While scouring unsuccessfully for business at Toyota Motor Co in 1969, he saw a brochure about forklift trucks on the automobile manufacturer's front counter. The receptionist directed Power to "Mr Akimoto" in a small building at the back of the property.
Power knocked on the door of the start-up, now known as Toyota Material Handling USA Inc.
"He didn't have any staff, (and) he didn't have any budget," Power told news anchor Pimm Fox on a 14 November
segment of Bloomberg LP's Taking Stock television program.
"I told him that I could give him a nice review of the total industry throughout the United States for forklift trucks. And he said, 'I don't have budget; how much will it cost?'"
Power told him USD600 and came back in two weeks with a report. "He loved it."
JD Power and Associates of Westlake Village is a subsidiary of New York-based McGraw Hill Financial Inc.