Elsewhere, I discussed using ArcGIS Explorer to map local businesses. Let’s now analyze the spatial pattern of businesses regionally or nationally.

Think about different types and scales of businesses. Ted Drewes Frozen Custard is a local business with 2 St Louis locations, while Menard’s is a regional Upper Midwest hardware store. Subway Restaurants and others are national or international in scope. What are some of the business decisions that must be made to locate or expand? GIS plays an important role in considering zoning, competition, demographics, and traffic patterns. What other factors would a business consider, and how many factors have a geographic component?

I had a “21st Century moment” earlier this year at a meeting at Del Mar College in Texas, for http://www.geotechcenter.org. A month before the meeting, attendees were asked to order our lunch from the Jason’s Deli website. I started wondering whether Jason’s is a local, regional, or national business. A visit to most websites of regional or national businesses allows one to search for store locations. By querying Jason’s locations from their website, I created a 2-column (city and state) spreadsheet and exported it into a tab-delimited text file, and used Import File in ArcGIS Explorer to geocode the locations. This was a painless process, and I symbolized the results with the dining symbol, as shown below.

I see that the Jason’s near me in Colorado lie on the northern fringe of their “territory.” Would you say that Jason’s is regional or national? What is your hypothesis about the location of Jason’s headquarters?

Jason’s corporate office is in Beaumont, Texas, and it maintains regional offices in Dallas, Houston, and Atlanta. Annually, Jason’s feeds more than 30 million people a year through more than 200 delis. And by the way, the delicious Jason’s lunch that was delivered to Del Mar College was exactly what I ordered!

It is easy to use ArcGIS Explorer to analyze spatial patterns. Give this a try with data of interest to you and your students.

- Joseph Kerski, ESRI Education Manager