Echoing my colleague’s comments yesterday, I read an interview today in the Wall Street Journal with J.C. Penney’s CEO, Myron “Mike” Ullman III (what a name). JCPenney is planning to merge the buying and marketing operations for stores and online sales this year, cutting as many as 200 jobs and preparing for a possible recession by maintaining a cash flow positive business.

Recession, positive cash flow, and CRM are terms that have traditionally mixed about as well as the terms Jessica Simpson, cans of tuna, and relationships. That said, I give Ullman credit. Here’s why:

WSJ: What sort of tough decisions have you been forced to make?

Mr. Ullman: One of the decisions is actually more consumer-driven than expense-driven. We’re going to align merchandising for our direct channels [Internet and catalog] with our store channel. Today there are two different organizations, and marketing and media messaging are separate.

We think that’ll have a positive benefit, particularly in 2009 and beyond, but even in 2008. We did some experimentation last year where we combined some of these efforts to find out, does it actually increase the overall business and does it make more sense to the consumer? It’s easy to understand why the consumer would expect that there’d be the same swimwear in the catalog, on the Internet, and in stores. And in face we did more business.”

Hardly in all me years of working within the CRM industry did I come across name-brand businesses that get it. But Ullman gets it. Ullman has people to answer to, whether it be stockholders or board members, and regardless of customer satisfaction scores, money is the bottom line in business. That’s understandable. But in the cost-cutting corporate world we live in today, it’s refreshing to find a CEO who understands the importance of walking the fine line between customer satisfaction and cutting costs when the economy is tight.

Ala Macys and Sprint Nextel, all too often marketing, sales, customer service, and even customers themselves, are the first to be cut. This, regardless of the “customer lifetime value” and “customer-centric” terms that have become corporate jargon within boardroom meetings. But here we have an example of an executive that’s identified both the need to cut costs and refine the customer experience by merging two channels and making it more convenient and cost-effective to do business, both for consumers and J.C. Penney; all the while keeping customer satisfaction top-of-mind.