Sales mapping software can help you visualize your data on maps, uncover correlations, and make better decisions. This allows businesses to improve customer experiences, optimize expansion strategies, and increase revenue.
Sales mapping software can also reduce time spent planning routes by identifying overlaps between territories, saving managers tens of hours weekly. This is accomplished through functionality such as:
Geospatial Analytics
With a new generation of geospatial analysis software that fuses location analytics with open data science and business intelligence workflows, companies can get answers to questions they didn’t even know to ask, help analyze data more thoroughly, and unlock fresh insights. With this kind of specialized analytics, it’s easier to pinpoint trends and turn them into organizational progress and business impact.
Using geospatial analytics, companies can automate their processes, speed up their decision-making, and create a competitive advantage. These tools and sales route mapping software also enable them to streamline complex operational workflows, modernize legacy systems, and move from hindsight to strategic foresight.
For example, a retail chain planning growth can use geospatial analytics to pinpoint optimal locations for new stores or branches based on customer demographic profiles, competitor research, and foot traffic analysis. This ensures the best return on investment for expansion efforts. Real estate companies can also leverage these tools to identify a property’s potential and develop effective marketing strategies. Meanwhile, insurance companies can rely on geospatial data to improve risk assessment and protect policyholders.
Businesses can also use these technologies to optimize supply chains, track vehicle routing, and improve efficiency for distribution and logistics. Similarly, telecommunications systems providers can use geospatial data to plan coverage analyses, optimize infrastructure deployment, and understand customer demand by region. This can help them improve overall service quality and reduce costs.
Geocoding
Known more generally as latitude and longitude, geocodes specify the exact location of a physical address on Earth. Geocoding is the process of converting a text-based description of an area into a pair of geographic coordinates, and it can also be used in reverse to translate geographical coordinates back into a text-based description.
In data management, geocoding is essential for ensuring that addresses are accurate and complete. This is crucial to avoid errors, reduce failed deliveries, improve customer satisfaction, and streamline business operations. Geocodes can be matched against various data sources, including street networks, highway mile markers, and GPS locations.
There are various uses for geocoding, including ecommerce and logistics, direct mail, and real estate. Many of these uses involve leveraging location information to improve marketing efficiency, streamline supply chains, and create innovative customer experiences.
The UC Berkeley campus community has access to a site license for ESRI software that supports geocoding and other spatial analysis. Students and faculty can use computers in the Earth Sciences & Map Library, Geospatial Innovation Facility, and D-Lab to perform geocoding tasks. Contact the appropriate lab manager for more details. Geocoding can also be performed on personal devices with a mapping application like Google Maps or Apple Maps. Alternatively, a third-party service like BatchGeocode can geocode large batches of latitude/longitude coordinates.
Geospatial Data Management
While geospatial data offers a wide range of business analytical possibilities, it can also be complex to collect and use. For example, geographic data files are structured differently from classic tabular (rows and columns) formats typically found in business, government, and scientific databases.
For one thing, geospatial data often requires specialized and expensive software to read. In addition, data models must be carefully developed and maintained. Otherwise, raw data and model results may not provide the insights necessary to drive business value.
Fortunately, geospatial data management solutions are available to ease the burden of these challenges. These services curate optimized information, enabling analysts to focus on using analytic insight to accelerate organizational progress and business impact.
Geospatial data management solutions are scalable and cloud-based, accommodating many file types. They can also handle sizeable geospatial raster and vector data sets efficiently.
Another benefit of these systems is their ability to integrate with other geospatial technologies. For instance, a company could use geospatial data from the Internet to improve its situational awareness or to evaluate marketing campaigns.
Finally, geospatial data management platforms are designed to support industry standards and the specialized processing and analysis engines required for this type of information. For example, GIS software typically requires specific metadata about a dataset’s coordinate system and projection to overlay this data on a map correctly.
Geospatial Data Visualization
Geospatial data visualization makes it easier to understand complex patterns and relationships. It also helps you communicate data to your audience more effectively because studies show that visual information is processed 60,000 times faster than text. This enables you to identify outliers, trends, and opportunities more quickly than raw data.
For example, you can determine which markets are most lucrative for your business by analyzing competitors’ locations and sales performance. You can then use that information to optimize your customer outreach and marketing campaigns. Another application of geospatial analysis is site selection, where you analyze factors such as population density, consumer behavior, and local competition to identify the best locations for new stores or branches.
Geospatial analytics can help you identify the impact of changing environmental conditions on your business operations. For instance, by examining satellite imagery and census data in one platform, you can see how vegetation coverage is impacted by weather and climate change and respond accordingly.
Other critical applications include telecommunications network planning, retail site selection, and insurance risk management. The ability to visualize geospatial data helps you find potential issues with your infrastructure more quickly and efficiently. For example, a geospatial analytics solution can pinpoint the exact locations of telecommunication towers that are not performing well so that you can immediately resolve any issues.
