Acme HVAC Controls, distributor of HVAC Control Devices, has a lot of competition. HVAC is a mature industry. The market is settled and tight. The installation and repair customers know what they require and they buy largely based on relationships and reliable part deliveries.
Still, Acme management smells opportunity. “We believe we can grow either through merger or through expansion into two new coverage areas.” Consequently, the company pulled their management team together for a business analysis session at headquarters. The time has come for high level decisions regarding the future of Acme HVAC Controls.
Problem: To adequately assess the HVAC market place Acme HVAC Controls needs to visualize exactly where all competitors are currently located and their general sales coverage areas. It would be helpful to view all current Acme customer locations (with sales values) as well as some of the more lucrative target accounts Acme hopes to win over through their expansion effort. In short, Acme requires a competitor map.
Over the past month, the President of Acme has gathered numerous datasets of information to support the planning meeting. Most of the data was already available through the IT Department and Sales Department:
Finally, the boss had a sales associate spend a morning on Google compiling an address dataset of competitors.
Solution: Find a low-cost, easy-to-use business mapping software and import the above noted location based datasets into a USA map view for color coding, symbolizing and analysis. Focus on the competitor locations looking for areas not saturated with distribution, and with labor demographics that support immediate hiring needs for the expansion.
At the planning meeting Acme decision makers used their competitor map as a guide to establish five likely new locations for Acme branches. The competitor map served several specific purposes that helped drive the decision-making process forward:
Your competitor map will make sense only to your business.
Thanks to business mapping software, Acme HVAC Controls is moving confidently into the future after solid decisions were made based in part on awareness of their competitors in their existing and future marketplace.
This leading national footwear brand manufacturer uses MapBusinessOnline to conduct retail coverage assessments nationwide. They loved MBO’s ability to provide both street level detail and USA wide high level views of points-of-sale. Importing location enabled address databases for symbolization and color shading is easy. New and planned stores can be added to the map market analysis as products are launched and mature.
"Importing location enabled address databases for symbolization and color shading is easy."
Todd Eichelberger
Sales Director
Adidas
"We've tried the REST now we are using the BEST. After searching and trying other mapping programs for our delivery operations team and finding that we just couldn't get all the features that we required, we finally found MapBusinessOnline. Not only did it have all the features we needed including Longitude/Latitude and optimizing delivery routes, but it provided us tons of other bells and whistles. MBO proved to be a superb tool for our operations team to create routes and territories with the click of a few buttons while also allowing our reporting team to make beautiful maps that help our executive team visualize the story the data was telling. We are using this for the 2nd year in a row and will be renewing when it is time again. We pride ourselves at offering cutting edge applications to our millions of readers and subscribers worldwide and love that MBO helps us stay ahead of the technology curve by continuing to update their product and features. The release of MBO for the Desktop was a great addition and only helps make using the product even easier. To the staff at MBO — Keep up the great work!"
Dow Jones
"I just wanted to say thank you for this amazing mapping tool! I've tried a number of sales territory map solutions and this is by far the best. I just (finally!) switched over from MapPoint and this is so much better, I wish I had switched sooner. Your videos and blog are also really helpful, though most things I have figured out on my own. It looks like I also have a lot more to discover as I explore the data visualization tools. Thanks again!"
Andrea Harrison
Business Analyst
Brainlab, Inc.