Find the Gap: A case study of strategic expansion

MapInfo Forums 2014Find the GapA case study of strategic expansion

Bob Schwartz

Chief Economist, Pitney Bowes Software

‹#› MapInfo Forums 2014

Business Problem:

How to be more proactive in location

decision-making

Many clients come to us because they

want to put some ‘science’ behind

their decisions.

This client came to us because they

had been too dependent on

opportunities coming to them.


Client:

Major consumer-facing organisation

They need large floorplates for their

stores.

As such, they rely on developers

coming to them.

Often, the developers need them,

rather than the other way around.


Desired Location:

Not necessarily in a shopping centre

Consumers come to the client.

The company wants to find those

areas that are currently un-served or

under-served.

So, where do you start?

Well, how about Brisbane?


Use this slide for a

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Next, we put in our clients

stores and all of their

competitors stores



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Then, we calculated a 15

minute drive time around each

location.

With this, it is now possible to

see whether there are any

unserved areas.



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We then calculated a measure

of persons per square metre

of floorspace.

The darker the colour, the

more underserved the area.



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Armed with this information,

we were then able to pinpoint

areas to investigate.

The stars represent potential

unserved or underserved

sites.



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The client needs a catchment

of 75,000 people.

The circles around the

potential sites represent the

size of the trade area that is

needed to reach the

necessary population.



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The area around Deception

Bay is less densely populated

than Mango Hill.

Thus, Deception Bay has to

draw from a much larger

catchment to reach 75,000

people.



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The previous slide showed

that both areas had a large

number of underserved areas

(the regions in blue).

The next slide shows those

areas (SA1s) with at least 400

people resident.



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The next slide shows the

thematic of daytime

population. The stronger the

colour, the higher the daytime

population.

Here, as with the population,

Mango Hill is stronger than

Deception Bay.



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Finally, we look at the per

capita spending on the

products and services that are

important to our client.

The darker the area, the

higher the spending.



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The end result is that Mango

Hill is a better location than

Deception Bay.

Mango Hill has higher

spending, more residents and

higher daytime population.


There’s No Magic Involved

Good data leads to good analysis

Data that was used in the project

Census

Estimates and Projections – Pitney Bowes Current Income

Future Population

Daytime Population – Pitney Bowes

Consumer Spend Potential – Pitney Bowes

Client data

Thanks for your time