MapBusinessOnline posts example business map applications in our Map Gallery. These business map examples are interactive web maps. Non-subscribers can access the Map Gallery on the website. Access to the interactive maps requires a download of the free Map App. Once the Map App is installed on your machine, click on any Map Gallery link to view the interactive sample maps. You can also select the Map Viewer option from the Map App list of services in the Windows Start Menu or MAC Applications Folder.
These Map Gallery sample maps represent both real-world applications and dreamed-up use cases of MapBusinessOnline. The advantage for you, the business map user, is that by viewing the Map Gallery, you will get ideas on business map design, map look and feel optimization, and other aspects of creating a compelling business map for your geospatial audience. (Yeah, I said ‘geospatial.’)
Walmart Stores Radius Search using MapBusinessOnline
As you review the Map Gallery example maps, pay attention to how the maps are compiled:
- Thematic colors are generally soft colors accompanied by a concise map legend
- Background map imagery tends to compliment the map’s purpose. In some cases, no background imagery makes more sense to focus the map viewer on the problem at hand
- These sample maps tend to focus on one problem at a time and avoid pulling in too many data layers
- For the most part, the map text on these maps is grammatically correct (Although we’re not perfect.)
Business maps, just like business documents, spreadsheets, and articles, are a personal reflection of your work ethic. They showcase your attention to detail and your ability to focus on a business problem. A business map may let your peers know if you are or are not taking your meds. Order the ‘I took my meds’ t-shirt here.
Case Studies
Another website exhibition of MapBusinessOnline business mapping applications is our Case Study section of the website. Case Studies provide more process detail on how an organization benefits from MapBusinessOnline. Each case study describes how a specific MapBusinessOnline user applies the tool to solve a set of business problems.
Business maps can help solve organizational challenges at multiple levels. Sometimes a simple coverage map addresses the business problem of explaining the areas our business serves. That’s a fundamental challenge that a business map can address in short order.
Market Expansion
Other business mapping software challenges are more complex. You will note several Case Studies focus on the challenge of analysis in support of market expansion. Business maps can be extremely useful in guiding and informing market expansion plans.
I like to refer to this market expansion support as Map-based Market Analysis. By using business maps to conduct market analysis, an organization can bring multiple analysis perspectives to bear on the business expansion challenge:
- Identifying Where You Currently do Business – Understanding where your business exists and where your customers live is a critical component of market analysis. This ‘where’ information can be as simple as your retail store address or as complex as where each traveling salesperson starts their day. Where or location information changes from industry to industry and from organization to organization. A business map ingests address or latitude/longitude coordinate spreadsheets and converts them into color-coded symbols on a map.
- How Far Are Your Customers from Your business? – How far in driving distance and how long in a driving time are not the same. Driving times and distances have huge impacts on how customers do business with any company. Business maps often provide driving time and distance calculations between location datasets and assign appropriate distance and time results to the data. How far will a family drive to pick up a pizza? How far does a massage therapist have to travel to generate adequate income for her services? Driving distances and times impact so many organizations – retailers, home care agencies, restaurants, movie theaters. The list goes on. Urban and rural business placements present very different time and distance scenarios for similar businesses.
- Who is Your Customer? – Demographic data is compiled by the US Census Bureau to, quote, ‘provide quality data about the nation’s people and economy.’ Online business mapping software taps into the broad library of US Census demographic subjects to match locations and areas with economic and crowd statistics. The results are a general understanding of where demographic characters and characteristics exist that will likely drive business.
- Where are Your Resources? – Every business requires resources to keep business happening. Resources could be energy sources, labor sources, reasonably priced raw materials, or even business-friendly local rules and regulations. Business maps can display these resources as other business address lists or as jurisdiction characteristics – city limits that favor food truck vendors, as an example.
Map-based market analysis pulls all these various views into one geospatial visualization – a map with a datasheet view. Both color-shaded thematic map layers and associated business and demographic datasets are combined to reveal answers to crucial business expansion planning questions. Questions such as:
- What cities or ZIP codes across the USA match our best operating parameters?
- What cities or counties contain the largest population of our critical demographic characteristics?
- Which urban areas carry the labor force required to support our manufacturing requirements?
- Which urban areas have enough critical industry to generate our metal components affordably?
Business Expansion is just one popular and common strategic process supported by business mapping software. These strategic processes include general Market Analysis, Sales Planning, Site Selection, Strategic Analysis, and many other business analysis challenges.
Case studies describe how one organization applies a business mapping tool to a particular set of problems. No two companies use MapBusinessOnline or approach their strategic planning in the same way. That’s one aspect of MapBusinessOnline that makes it an excellent geospatial tool – it brings advanced business mapping tools to all industries, affordably and within an easy-to-learn user interface.
In addition to map-based market analysis, you’ll find case studies listed on MapBusinessOnline.com that describe applications of business mapping for event planning, insurance coverage, subscription media management, and USDA agriculture map access.
We’ve got more in the works, so keep checking in.
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Find out why over 25,000 business users log into www.MapBusinessOnline.com for their business mapping software and advanced sales territory mapping solution. The best replacement for Microsoft MapPoint happens to be the most affordable.
To access MapBusinessOnline, please register and then download the Map App from the website – https://www.mapbusinessonline.com/App-Download.aspx.
After installing the Map App, the MapBusinessOnline launch button will be in the Windows’ Start Menu or Mac Application folder. Find the MapBusinessOnline folder in the Start Menu scrollbar. Click the folder’s dropdown arrow and choose the MapBusinessOnline option.
The Map App includes the Map Viewer app for free non-subscriber map sharing.
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Contact: Geoffrey Ives geoffives@spatialteq.com or Jason Henderson jhenderson@spatialteq.com
