CASE STUDY: Publishing Company

Client Publishing Company
Sector Publishing
Job function Sales / IT / Marketing
Task Marketing Analysis / Sales Planning

THE CLIENT...
A highly successful publishing operation uses Geoplan mapping as an integral part of its organisation. The company's mission is to provide the highest quality educational products and services to its customers. It is one of the leading educational publishers in the UK and works with the educational community to develop well-structured materials that motivate and engage pupils and students.

THE PROBLEM...
Understanding its customers' requirements is critical to the company's continued success. Through questionnaires, discussion groups and analysis of market data, the company's marketing and publishing strategy is continually developed. The Marketing and IT departments wanted to enhance management information and analyse market trends and preferences. Understanding that geographical location was a major influence on which products were sold, they realised that a Geographical Information System had to be an integral part of any Management Information System implemented.

THE SOLUTION...
Geoplan GeoAnalyser facilitates this geographical analysis of customer and sales data. By capturing customer Postcodes on databases, the company has been able to link product sales to Postcode Areas and so analyse all sales geographically. Accessing data held on its Oracle databases, the system allows Postcode Areas to be mapped and colour-coded according to sales values of any selected title, or groups of titles, creating a high impact visualisation of geographical product performance and overall company performance.

The system is also used to aid potential markets, highlighting areas with a high number of educational establishments and where current sales are low.

THE BENEFITS...
Geoplan GeoAnalyser is now fully integrated into the publishing company's Management Information System, enabling the rapid identification of the areas in which both direct and indirect sales are declining and/or improving.

Information is passed on to business development managers who then relay this to the sales managers and representatives, forming the basis of future sales and marketing strategies.

Having used Geoplan GeoAnalyser to identify specific geographical trends of sales by title, the system is also now implemented to measure the success of alternative marketing strategies for different geographical regions.