Business Territory Information Management
Business Territories Cartographers of old expressed their uncertainty about a place with the words terra incognita - unknown territory. Today, atlases have no blank spaces and no mythical monsters. But .......... Modern business territories are complex - they can be difficult to visualise, difficult to manage, difficult to analyse for market intelligence and above all, they are dynamic, ever changing, even turbulent. Yet a thorough knowledge of your business territory and its setting within the business landscape is critical to your survival. Exploring the Issues These days, successful businesses exist and operate in two worlds:
	the physical world of geographical space;
	a cyberspace world of computers and telecommunications.
Electronic commerce (e-commerce) operating over intranets, extranets and the Internet (e-nets) increased by more that 200% in 1997/98 and by 2005 is likely to have captured half of the credit card transactions market. Amazingly, Internet demand is doubling every 100 days. Living-room and office Internet connectivity will rocket as more reliable, easier to use thin-client technology (such as set-top boxes and network computers) start to dominate the market by 2002. But whilst cyberspace is the new battleground of business, markets for products and services are still rooted in geographical space. Your customers (and suppliers) are still somewhere regardless of whether they travel to an outlet to make a transaction or, having done so electronically, expect you to organise the logistics of delivery. Consider the following market intelligence model: Given that the most powerful predictor of future behaviour of customers in a business territory is current and past behaviour, then a very large amount of market intelligence is either lost through not being recorded or is left unlocked in databases. More importantly, if markets are changing rapidly due to, amongst other things, technology push, then monitoring changing behaviour sheds light on those new directions. Most businesses and organisations sit on a mountain of data that uniquely describes the behaviour of their suppliers and customers but often fail to analyse all its dimensions on a regular basis. Gut feelings can be right, but they are much better and safer when informed by solid information. So how to go about getting that actionable information? The first step is to make sure that your organisation has an e-net presence. A well designed website with carefully managed content and appropriately registered on search engines will give relatively cheap exposure to an ever expanding source of potential customers. The second step is to ensure that your business or organisation is collecting pertinent data. This can be done in three main areas:
	using and analysing contact management systems so as not only to improve relationships but to record useful intelligence;
	using e-net or web presence to advantage by careful design of the web site with its content and regularly archiving the usage logs for analysis;
	ensuring that your customer transaction database includes sufficient data, such as postcodes, to allow useful analysis of behaviour geographically and temporally (monthly, seasonally) as well as by product.
These three areas of data recording, which should be happening as an integral part of the business process, hold the key to describing and managing business territories as they exist in geographical space and in cyberspace. The third step is to analyse these three sets of data both spatially and temporally to identify the patterns that emerge - not just once, but on a regular basis so that you can understand the dynamics. Part of the secret of successful data analysis is the way in which data are prepared. A crucial step is outlier detection and data normalisation. Our very successful approach is based on the unique TC-transform. Finally, the market intelligence that emerges from these analyses together with your knowledge of the sector, technological trends and general economic trends inform your businesses corporate strategy and thus closes the loop. The Cardinal Questions These are who, what, where, when and how. The answers to these define your business territory in geographical space and cyberspace. Regular analysis provides valuable market intelligence. There is no single system or technology that can handle all of these. For, example, contact management systems are strong on 'who' and 'what', weaker on 'where'. Geographical information systems (GIS) are very strong on 'where'. By combining a range of interoperable technologies, each good in their area, you have flexibility with strength to answer the cardinal questions. Data are vital business assets and need to be analysed with levels of skill, care and attention befitting their importance. Be a Strategist, use Terra Cognita We offer a suite of services in contact management systems, e-net value enhancement and the space-time analysis of customer transactions (either singly or as an integrated package) so that businesses and other organisations can better understand, effectively manage and maximise advantage of their territories and networks. Contact us now by email at email@terra-cognita.com or phone/fax 01279 721818 within the UK or +44 1279 721818 from abroad. We will not tell you your business ...... but we will work with you to facilitate a terra cognita.
Know your enemy, know yourself; Your victory will never be endangered. Know the ground, know the weather; Your victory will then be complete. Sun Tzu, The Art of War, ~500 B.C.
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