October 31, 2019
Making better decisions for franchises based on data
If you dig deep enough, there is no shortage of data to guid anyone in running their small business or even an entire franchise network. The challenge is, their is often way too much data available and in differing formats that are not congruent with making meaningful and timely decisions for the business.
We spoke with Richard O'Nians about this and solutions around it.
Finding growth opportunities
Richard explained in detail that "GapMaps provides a network and demographic mapping platform that enables businesses in the franchise or retail sectors to analyse where their customers are, identify where their opportunities are for growth, and make good decisions about their networks based on data."
The business was developed by a team that have extensive experience in the franchise and territory mapping industry. In particular, tapping into their experience working with businesses fast food and fuel, as well as significant experience in shopping centres as well.
Too much data?
In a modern and highly-connected world, it's often the case that their is too much data to trawl through to find the meaningful set for application.
Richard explains, "...it's the ability to interrogate data and make good decisions. So the types of data that enable you to make a decision based on facts around where your customers are located, where your competitors are located, as well as other sources of information such as traffic, petrol, fuel margins or retail spending."
"But it's all comes together in a way that enables a client to interrogate the data in a way to enable them to make a good decision for their network."
Making it easy to get answers
The immediate focus for the business and product is, "...continuing to make it easy for clients to actually get the answers they need. So they have something that they can always turn to to access the information when they need to make a decision."
These answers may be for a time sensitive, "...new opportunity, but it (also) might be on developing a longterm strategy and where they would like to take their business to in terms of a physical distribution output."
