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Federated Department Stores

A customized GIS application for the visual display and analysis of demographic and proprietary data to assist in site location analysis.

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Business Problem

Federated Department Stores, Inc., operates more than 460 stores nationwide. The Area Research department performs many functions for the company, including sales projections for new stores and potential acquisitions, market and strategic analysis, and map/report production. Before implementing the current ArcView application, research analysts had to access demographic data, proprietary credit data and competitive information from a variety of databases. These disparate data sources did not have a mapping interface, so the users were responsible for manually importing the data and joining it with boundary files. The lack of formal GIS training, and the complexity of former GIS packages used in the department, prevented most analysts from fully utilizing the data.

The Area Research department hired Bluegrass GIS to develop a customized extension that would allow access to these different data sources, as well as increase the department’s GIS usage by creating a more user-friendly interface. After several generations of in-house modifications and improvements, the Federated application fully integrates the department’s data and provides the Area Research staff with new and improved methods to speed market evaluation. It also enables new employees to quickly familiarize themselves with Federated’s existing markets, including demographic data, sales penetration and competition.

Technology Implemented

ArcView 3.2a
Microsoft Access

Development Team Biography

Jeff Laird, Bluegrass GIS – Jeff developed the original ArcView extension for the Area Research department. He supplied the Avenue source code for his work to enable in-house modifications and improvements. He also made himself available for continued consultation after the product was delivered.

Jesse O’Neill and Keith Wardrip, research analysts at Federated – Jesse and Keith learned Avenue and continually increased the application’s functionality and user-friendliness.

Peri Georgiades and Michael Pickens, database developers at Federated – Peri and Michael ensured that Area Research’s databases worked seamlessly with the ArcView application. They also developed custom Microsoft Access reports based on geographic selections in ArcView.