Business Analyst Blog

Is the Recession Over? Musings on the Current State of the Economy from a Two-Handed Economist

cmpalermo — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:58:00 GMT

By Doug Skuta

“Give me a one-handed economist! All my economists say on the one hand…on the other.” Harry S Truman

Dare I say it…on the one hand, it would appear the U.S. economy is showing some signs of strength. Real gross domestic product (GDP) clocked in at a 3.5 percent pace in the third quarter this year. Businesses are starting to burn through inventories which may ignite further production to keep pace with current and future sales. Plus, it is easy to think the economy may have finally bottomed out with recent evidence of stabilization and even improvement in housing indicators. In fact, many media outlets have cited such positive developments as confirmation that the “Great Recession” is finally behind us.

On the other hand (and you knew that was coming), much of the growth in third quarter GDP was from the transient effects of automotive and home buyer subsidies. The government’s Cash for Clunkers program expired, and the newly extended $8,000 first-time home buyer credit winds down by the end of April 2010. The Bureau of Labor Statistics just released the latest monthly performance on the labor market. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose again, to 10.2 percent—leaping into double digit territory for the first time since the early eighties. As long as people are losing jobs and saving their money to weather the downturn, don’t expect consumer spending to rebound. Consumer spending accounts for roughly 70 percent of GDP. The upcoming holiday season may serve as bellwether on spending in 2010.

Fiscal and monetary policies are still operating in overdrive. The Federal government is spending money at historic levels in the hope of spurring growth. The Federal Reserve continues to keep short term interest rate at or near zero to inject more liquidity into financial markets. However, such moves are also raising fears of unsustainable debt levels and future inflation, as evident in the slumping dollar and the soaring price of gold.

In the end, the National Bureau of Economic Research’s recession dating committee makes the official call on the recession‘s end. While the stock market has recovered some of its deep losses, I think we are still in for a bumpy ride. The fear is the Great Recession may morph into the “Great Reflation” once the economy starts to absorb the massive cash infusion. The economy may continue to grow through next year, but at a much slower rate. And unemployment will persist until businesses see evidence of higher demand for their products and services.

Hey! I can see my house from here

jhincy — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:54:00 GMT

by Jeff Hincy

Have you ever wondered how film makers get all that fancy imagery in their movies? You would assume it costs thousands of dollars and they have to jump through hoops to get it. Well you too can be a multi-million dollar film maker with the imagery that comes standard with Business Analyst Desktop.

Ok, well maybe that is not entirely true, but you can access some of the latest satellite and aerial imagery with the click of a few buttons. The ImageConnect toolbar in Business Analyst Desktop is a gateway to some of the best imagery in the business provided by DigitalGlobe.

Recently we have added a new dataset of imagery to Business Analyst through the ImageConnect toolbar. It provides our clients with the most up to date imagery that DigitalGlobe has to offer. It ranges from complete aerial coverage of the United States at up to 1 meter resolution to .3 meter satellite imagery taken from the QuickBird satellite that contains "deep strip coverage of urban, rural and coastal areas." You can investigate a new market using imagery as recent as last quarter.

For those of you who have not explored this incredible resource yet, the ImageConnect toolbar is included with Business Analyst Desktop. It allows you to connect directly to the DigitalGlobe image server and download high resolution satellite and aerial imagery directly into your map and save them for later analysis and viewing. As long as you have internet access you have unlimited access to these images.

The imagery accessed from the ImageConnect toolbar contains not only the most current imagery but historical imagery that can be used to see things such as construction trends in a market. It is also important to note that before downloading your image you should examine the available imagery in your market to decide which attribute is the most important for your analysis. Sometimes vintage is the most important attribute but other times resolution can as or more important. By default the ImageConnect toolbar will select an image based on a combination of attributes such as resolution, data source, and vintage. To view a list of available imagery simply click the ImageConnect button and then select ImageConnect Data Library. From this dialog you will a list of the available imagery at your current map scale and you can select the appropriate image to download for your analysis.

You might be curious how to access this wonderful new data update. Let me show you how to access it.

Step 1: Launch Business Analyst.

Step 2: From the Main Menu you will see an ImageConnect menu option. Click the ImageConnect button and select ImageConnect Properties.

Step 3: From the Data Layers drop-down menu select Country Coverage and hit OK.

That's it you are done. You will have to do this for each computer that Business Analyst is installed on and these preferences will be saved so you won't have to go back and do this again.

-Jeff

Now you can create your own Business Analyst Online!

jkillick — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 04:22:00 GMT

by James Killick

Ever looked at Business Analyst Online and wanted to embed the same kind of functionality into your own site? Well now you can with the new API to Business Analyst Online!

The great new service allows web developers to simply call our REST or SOAP APIs to create ring or drive time trade areas and generate the same reports that you get out of Business Analyst Online.

Typical use cases include Economic Development Agencies that want to drive business to their cities... now they can easily create an interactive web site that allows users to search/browse available properties in the area and find out more about the people, places and businesses in the vicinity of each property... just like in Business Analyst Online...

A great example is the City of Miami which is now using the Business Analyst Online API for their own public facing site selection tool. See the screen shot below. You can check it out at www.miami-sites.com

We're making this new API available via an ArcGIS Online package called "USA Business Analyst Reporting". This package bundles the API with ArcGIS Online Street Maps, Imagery, Demographic Maps + Geocoding. (BTW - you can also use the API with your own favorite online maps too - but you'll need to get the appropriate license from the third party).

Using this API you can easily (and quickly) develop rich Internet apps in Flex, JavaScript or Silverlight that incorporate Business Analyst functionality... for more details go here for general info and here for the detailed technical stuff.

Cheers,

-James.

Comparison reports have a lot more to offer! – Part I

SJ92373 — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:25:00 GMT

by Sooria Jeyaraman

By now I’m sure you must have explored the new comparison reports in Business Analyst Online, if not I would strongly urge you to do so. It is one of our marquee features that some of our users are craving for. I will let you know some more tricks in the feature that will make your job easier. Hypothetical scenario – I am interested in a couple of locations near Mira mesa, San Diego. I want to know about the demographics of people living in 5, 10, 15 minute drive time of this location. I also want to know how these locations fare in comparison with its ZIP code, County and also benchmark it against my successful location in Redlands.

Hmmm.. how could I do this? Do I need to create all these as separate sites and get reports and add them manually in excel to compare!! No that’s when our new comparison reports come to your rescue. Let’s first create the two drive time sites.

Now go to “Get Reports” tab, click “Create Comparison Reports” and these two sites will be automatically selected in the site panel, add your successful Redlands site to it. These three sites will be shown in step 1 as sites selected.

On step 2 open the ZIP code dropdown, now that lists all the ZIP codes that your sites belong too (sweet huh!), select your desired ZIP code and now move on to the County dropdown which will list all the counties that your sites belong too, pick your interested county.

Now move on to step 3, an option to pick your benchmark. Open the dropdown and you can see all the sites selected, its respective geographies and not just that you have options to benchmark it against the “Average” and “Median” of your selected sites. Now for our walkthrough let’s pick your successful Redlands site.

On step 4 let’s say we are interested to look at the Income variables, go ahead and click the “Income” button. Here’s what you would get once you click the button in step 4.

You get an UI with the graphs with the benchmarked site as the first site and your selected sites with the ZIP code and county of your selection. It’ll be better if I explain each of the elements on this page one by one with highlights.

1. View toggle button lets you switch between this graph view and a tabular view where you can just look at the sites and variables in plain numbers in a table format.

2. Variables dropdown lets you select/deselect the variables you would like to be displayed in the graph/table.

3. Graph legend represents each variable and the bar color associated with it

4. Year toggle lets you see our five year projection for the selected variables.

5. Dropdowns below each site name lets you change the individual drive time to be displayed in the graph.

6. Finally you can also print and save the information in excel for further reference.

On the top you have tabs to switch between our other popular variables “Population” “Households” “Housing” and the last tab “Customize” lets you create your own set of variables – more on that in my next blog on the same subject, watch out.

Before you go, I would also suggest you to visit our friend and fellow blogger Kyle’s scribbling in his blog post about benchmark report in Business Analyst Desktop.

http://blogs.esri.com/Dev/blogs/businessanalyst/archive/2009/09/29/The-Fabulous-Benchmark-Report.aspx

Happy Comparing!

- SJ

We've got software in the oven...

kwatsonESRI — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:45:00 GMT

by Kyle Watson

Hi there reader,

Just wanted to drop a line about new desktop software releases forthcoming in November, both will be released at the same time.

Business Analyst 9.3.1 Service Pack 1 - AKA BA931SP1. This will be an MSP setup (so the same style as a standard ArcGIS service pack) that you can install directly from the automatic Check for BA Updates utility or download it from our Support Center page. The service pack will fix a variety of basic maintenance items as well as some key issues found by clients that we didn't know about at first. We have a couple "hotfixes" out there now, not to worry - those will be included in the service pack.

Business Analyst 9.3.1 for Canada with 2009 Data - If you didn't know we create a Canadian version of Business Analyst - we do - right here in Redlands. If you have both the US and Canadian version installed on one machine, you just toggle between country-specific datasets to run reports and analyses. The 2009 product is based on Canada's newest census information. We'll have this next incarnation coming to you shortly.

So keep an eye out for new Business Analyst 9.3.1 software in mid-November...more details to follow...

All the best,

Kyle

Market Potential reports now available in ESRI Business Analyst Online

sasbab — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:32:00 GMT

by Brenda Wolfe

Market Potential reports are here! Come and get 'em!

The Market Potential reports provide measures of the probable demand for a product or service in a defined geographic area.

The following Market Potential reports are now available in Business Analyst Online:

Electronic and Internet Market Potential
Financial Investments Market Potential
Health and Beauty Market Potential
Pets and Products Market Potential
Restaurant Market Potential
Retail Market Potential
Sports and Leisure Market Potential

Based on survey data and updated annually, these reports include the expected number of consumers and a Market Potential Index (MPI) that measures the likelihood that households in a specified area will exhibit certain consumer behaviors compared to the U.S. national average.

There are some really fascinating and detailed variables in the reports, such as the estimated number of adults who ate at Quiznos or the Cheesecake Factory in the last six months.

With these reports you can...

Analyze markets by product type, brand, and purchase patterns to determine if your product would be profitable in the area.
Consider changes and expansions to your product mix based on consumer product demand in the area.
Study competitive products penetration by brand, price, and options, and devise marketing campaigns based on the findings.

To see samples click here. Reports are available for $75 each or in your choice of add-on report packages in Business Analyst Online.

Cheers!

Halloween Facts from ESRI

cmpalermo — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 21:50:00 GMT

by Catherine Spisszak

Halloween is here and I thought you might find these facts using ESRI Data interesting:

Bone Gap Village, IL has a total population of 262. 25.0% of the residents are under 18 and of trick or treating age.
17.4% of the population in Tombstone City, AZ can trick or treat this year as they are younger than 18.
Bates City, MO has an index of 72 for purchasing a horror video/DVD in the last month, 28% lower than the national demand.
The index in Jasonville city, IN for buying a horror video/DVD in the last month is 201, 101% higher than the national demand.
Deadwood city, SD has an index of 93 for buying prepackaged, loose candy in the last 6 months, 7% lower than the national demand.
The index in Pumpkin Center, NC index for buying prepackaged, loose candy in the last 6 months is 104, 4% higher than the national demand.

For more information on ESRI Data please visit http://www.esri.com/data/esri_data/index.html.

Happy Halloween!!

When the Sum is not equal to the parts

kwatsonESRI — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:03:00 GMT

by Kyle Watson

Hello blog readers,

This is a story about "which side of the tracks" you are on and how demographic analysis comes into play. More importantly how to identify certain anomalies when one side is completely opposite of the other - and the sum doesn't equal its parts.

To illustrate this point let's say we are a national franchising organization. Hundreds of new applications come in a month each with three or four proposed sites. Our commercial real estate group then gives us analysis, maps, and reports of newly proposed franchises. We spec out the sites, they come back with the goods. They hand us a "PASS/FAIL" report that tells us if we've met our initial criteria.

The initial criteria is always:

A 7-mile radius
Population of 250k - 350k
Average Household Income of $120k (+/- 20%)

So this is what we get back in a nice report. If the three variables are not met - FAIL. And we move on to different proposed sites. If the criteria is met - PASS. We further breakdown the area and continue with the suitability process.

Below is an example PASS/FAIL map (of which I annotated to show the anomalies). At first glance all criteria is a match, right?

WRONG!

We take a more in-depth and determine that even though the average household income of the 7-mile ring is $121k, there aren't any block groups in the surrounding area that are actually in the $121k range. Here we are dealing with a real life situation where the north side of the proposed location (the working class Pontiac, MI area) and the south side (one of the most affluent areas in the U.S., Bloomfield Hills, MI) border each other back-to-back. Polar opposites.

The extreme differences in demographic makeup cause an anomaly, thus we can't consider the 7-mile ring a uniformly, normalized area. In this case the medians and averages for the ring don't tell us the whole story.

This concept is often related to ecological fallacy. Take, for example the linear graphic below. This is a representative situation of the map above. The average and median are not representative of any data considered.

Quite often when averages are skewed, medians are the next in line for analysis. In this case neither help. You could split the regions into a north and south trade area (which I did using the Draw Area tool in Business Analyst desktop), but this only reaffirms that one side is too low and the other is too high. The common practice remaining is to expand your PASS/FAIL criteria. You may need to add a second tier of demographic qualifiers (competitors, age, race, market saturation) before making a final decision.

I hope the above reaffirms the notion that unless you do analysis in an evenly distributed Utopian society, make sure you understand the data. And add in some secondary checks to ensure you make the right decision.

Cheers,

Kyle - born in a Pontiac - Watson

Business Analyst Desktop 9.4 is Well Underway - and We Need Your Input!!!

jkillick — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:56:00 GMT

by James Killick

You might be interested to hear that we're well underway with planning and development for the 9.4 version of Business Analyst Desktop. We're very excited about the new features we're adding to the product.

Just about everything we're putting into the next release is based on feedback we've gained from you via one-on-one interviews, site visits, customer surveys and by talking to you at trade shows.

However -- it doesn't stop there...

We will be conducting a number of webinars to get your feedback on the new features as we fine tune them for release. If you'd like a chance to influence the direction we're taking and take part in the webinars please let us know.

Send an email to [businessanalyst at esri dot com] with your name, your customer number and contact details (company name, phone, email) as well as the product version you are using.

Talk to you soon,

James

A little gem about Address Coder…

lguerra — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:42:00 GMT

by Lucy Guerra

Hey there, here's a little something you may not know about Address Coder. For those of you using Tapestry segmentation to classify your customer or member lists, did you know that Address Coder allows you to create your own "master" grouping? That's right - you can group Tapestry segments together into your own groups.

Let's say you've geocoded and Tapestry appended customer lists and learned over time that your best, most profitable customers come from two segments: 6 - Sophisticated Squires and 12 - Up and Coming Families. And that you always seem to have a lot of customers in segment 17 - Green Acres, even though they tend not to be the most profitable customers. With Address Coder, you can create your own "master" groups to be displayed on the first page of the Tapestry Profile Report: ‘My Best Customers' - all the customer records in 6 - Sophisticated Squires and 12 - Up and Coming Families and ‘My Potential Customers' - all the records in 17 - Green Acres.

To do this, go to the Summary Group Editor found under the File menu.

Then click ‘Add New' to create a new grouping. (Here it's named My Summary Group.) ‘Create' collections for each group: My Best Customers and My Potential Customers.

Now when you setup a new geocoding, data appending, and report job, you'll be able to choose the new grouping from the Report Options tab:

In this way, you've made it easy to get a quick snapshot of any future customer lists: how many fall into your best, most profitable customer group, and how many fall into your potential customer group.

Like the 12 LifeMode groups, which reflect lifestyles/life stages, and the 11 Urbanization groups, which show levels of affluence and population density, your own custom Tapestry group gives you another way to look at the big picture of your customers or members.

For more information about Address Coder, please visit: www.esri.com/coder.

Naming Your Sites in Business Analyst Online

SJ92373 — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 21:05:00 GMT

by Sooria Jeyaraman

Site naming in Business Analyst Online has taken a new approach in the current release and here’s a brief snapshot of the interaction. From the feedback we got from the users we found a couple of things, our default site names (“Site_8” etc) are not very popular among the users and apart from the user specified site name they also want to see the address of the site for clarification and organization.

Thinking on those lines we arrived at this approach. The first step of the Find Location workflow now includes a toggle button to toggle between address and lat/long and also an optional text box to specify a site name.

Did I say optional! So what happens when you specify or not specify a site name? How is it going to impact in the reports? Why not I walk you through both the approaches here..

Site name specified:

User types in the address in the Address box and types in a name in the optional site name box in the second line. The map gets geo coded to the address and shows a pin on the map. The contextual menu shows the Site name in the first line and the address in the second line.

Now the user moves on to the next step of creating rings/drivetimes/donuts and it gets applied to the pin. Another thing to note is the Site Name could be changed any time before you order the report by clicking on the “Edit Name” link in the contextual menu.

Once you order a report, the site name is shown in the first line of the header and the address is shown on the second and third line of the header.

This site name and the description (address) will be added to Organize Sites, Site Panel, and Previous Reports etc for easier understanding and organization.

Site name not specified:

Some users don’t want to go through the pain of adding a site name, just want to get in and get out, guess what you can do that too. You can just type in the address in the Address box and leave the optional site name box empty and hit Go. This puts the pin on the map and shows the address on the contextual menu. There will be a link shown in the first line to add a site name, in case you changed your mind by then.

After moving to the second step and applying rings or drive times or donuts to the point, the contextual menu shows the address in the second line and again a message to add an optional site name in the first line.

Once you order a report, only the address will be shown in the report header without any cryptic “Site_1” default site names. Sweet huh!

We feel this approach gives the user the extra flexibility but still get desired reports. Do let us know your thoughts on this approach, later..

An Urban Retail Strategy

kwatsonESRI — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 22:02:00 GMT

by Kyle Watson

Let's take a stroll into the retail industry...

Daniel Howes of The Detroit News wrote a column recently about Meijer, Inc. looking to open a superstore in Detroit, Michigan. Meijer, a Midwest-based "everything-under-one-roof" grocery retailer has no current stores within the city limits. In fact no one does. There are no major retail grocery chains in a city, that according to ESRI's 2009 demographic estimates, is home to 864,744 people. That is a shocking thought. Here in small-town-charm Redlands, we have SEVEN!

But as Howes writes, there looks to be an urban trend of supply & demand brewing, one that I find interesting:

"We have numbers that show $1.7 billion is spent by Detroiters outside Detroit for retail," says George Jackson, president of the quasi-public Detroit Economic Growth Corp. "That's a powerful number. Building something in the city ... gives a store like Meijer a competitive advantage.

Among Meijer's operating assumption (apparently shared by rival Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s "urban strategy") is that higher fuel prices and generational migration to more densely populated areas will revitalize urban areas abandoned by developers a generation ago. Revenue and, perhaps, loyalty will accrue to those who arrive first."

Hope you found this interesting, take a look at the whole article - there are plenty of good snippets on the industry and economy.

If I were doing this analysis with the Business Analyst products, some tools and features that come to mind are: The Retail MarketPlace Profile Report to measure gaps in supply versus demand, the Businesses and Shopping Center Reports to understand what industry competitors are around you, and using Consumer Spending data with Spatial Overlay to analyze the potential buying power of your future shoppers. Of course you'd may want to dabble with some Huff Modeling to determine the attractiveness of that new grocery superstore locale.

Cheers,

Kyle

A Different View of Your Neighborhood

jimhe — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 06:53:00 GMT

by Jim Herries

I'm trying to convince a friend of mine that it's time to sell the house and move to an area closer to work. To compare the potential new neighborhoods, I sent her this map available from ESRI's new Mapping for Everyone site.

This map is like a satellite image of factors at work in the local economy. Want to know how your neighborhood stacks up to the surrounding areas in terms of median home value for 2009? What is the unemployment story around your neighborhood? This is a glimpse at just a few bits of demographic and consumer data that ESRI has available.

Each year ESRI publishes selected demographic maps in ArcGIS Online, to make them available so people out in the real world can think about how to use this data. My friend saw this map and the light went on: "I've been thinking about that area." Seeing the spatial patterns helped move the conversation forward.

While business users of GIS have found this type of visual presentation useful for years, a lot of interest is building in other areas, such as public safety and emergency response. It makes sense - if you want to plan ahead about how best to serve the public, it really helps to have current information on where the people, housing and businesses are.

ESRI Data - Going Green

cmpalermo — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 17:45:00 GMT

Green is the new black. From reusable bags at the supermarket and energy efficient appliances to hybrid cars and recycling, we are all trying to do our part. ESRI Data can be used to identify some interesting trends in our efforts to be green.

The U.S. city with the highest likelihood to buy foods labeled as natural or organic is Telluride, Colorado. That city boasts a Market Potential Index (MPI) of 217. An MPI compares the demand for a specific product or service in an area to the national demand for that product or service. The index is tabulated to represent a value of 100 as the overall demand for the United States. Therefore, the MPI of 217 in Telluride means the demand for food labeled as natural or organic is 117% higher than in the U.S. The city of Mount Healthy, Ohio has a much lower index at 64, falling below the national average.

Telluride, Colorado also ranks very high in the likelihood to participate in an environmental group with an MPI of 284. However, the number one spot is held by Bonanza, Colorado with an MPI of 297. Helper, Utah has an MPI of 84, meaning demand to participate in environmental groups is 16% lower than in the U.S. as a whole.

Finally, Warm River, ID lays claim to the highest MPI for recycling products in the last year at 192. Green, Ohio has an index of 119, making them 19% more likely to recycle than the U.S. Both Sodaville, Oregon and Glassport, Pennsylvania have an index of 90 for recycling products in the last year.

To perform the above analysis, I took the Market Potential data in comma delimited format and imported it into Excel to perform sorts and searches. ESRI Data can be utilized in this manner, or the data can be analyzed in reports or thematic maps on both Business Analyst Online and Business Analyst Desktop. For more information about ESRI Market Potential data please visit http://www.esri.com/data/esri_data/market-potential.html

Stay tuned for more examples of how ESRI Data can reveal trends in going green. And until then…keep reducing, reusing, and recycling!

The Fabulous Benchmark Report

kwatsonESRI — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:58:00 GMT

by Kyle Watson

Hi there,

One of my favorite features in ESRI Business Analyst is the Benchmark Report. It allows you to compare multiple trade areas against one another to decipher how different or similar one location is versus the next. This is essential for companies in the franchising, banking, and retail industries looking to analyze well performing and not-so-well performing sites. Heck - ESRI is a paying customer. We use it internally to monitor Regional and Satellite Office commuter areas and even evaluate the demographic profiles of every potential conference or seminar.

Take for example analyzing ESRI's Regional Offices, specifically 20-min drive times around each location. Which office covers the most square miles? Which has the highest population growth? How does Boston's aggregate income measure up to Olympia's? What about San Antonio's diversity index versus Charlotte's. Or St. Louis home values compared to the overall RO average. How about all this stuff in the same Excel table!

So once you load up all of your trade areas you then define how you want to "benchmark" them. Use a master site (often your best performing), overall average, or the median of all trade areas.

Below you can see a typical Benchmark Report output. Redlands (we do have a Regional Office right on campus) is the master site. Then all other ROs are benchmarked against it. I selected population and total businesses within a 20 minute commute. By examining the nicely formatted Excel table, you can see the Washington D.C RO has twice the amount of people. And there's 66% less business locations around Olympia. This shows just two variables, but you can add any amount - including your own, such as sales or customer transactions per location.

Another cool way to use the Benchmark Report is to compare standard geographies for a frame of reference. Such as understanding how demographics for ZIP Code 90210 compares to all of Beverly Hills city, compared to LA County, compared to California, compared to the entire US, etc.

Later,

Kyle