Individual
Project Assignment
RATIONALE
Facility with the techniques and tools of GIS software and
marketing segmentation analysis are the foundational skills of the business
geographer. Once these basic tools are acquired, emphasis shifts to the
fundamental process of all marketing research, solving marketing problems
through data acquisition and analysis. This project is designed to allow
students latitude in addressing common marketing problems. Each student is
invited to design his/her own data analysis project. The following is
offered as a default project should that be more desirable to you.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
By extraordinary coincidence, our class has been selected by a
world famous, though fictitious, retail consulting firm to perform a major
retail market analysis for the Chicago Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA).
The client wants us to make specific recommendations for site selection in
sixteen different retail sectors. Moreover, the client threatens to
withhold a substantial endowment for Murray State's new varsity bungee jumping
team (you probably think I'm kidding, just wait) unless we present them with our
report by 5 May.
Data
To facilitate this process, Dean Dan Harrison (a former bungee
jumper himself) has purchased for us at considerable expense the following compressed
datasets from CACI.
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1999 Demographic, socioeconomic, age and income data at the
census tract level,
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1999 ACORN lifestyle cluster
data, also at the census tract
level,
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1999 purchasing levels by census tract for a range of
consumer products, and
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1999 Dun and Bradstreet business data for sixteen different
retail sectors.
Tasks
Each of you will use this data to prepare a general site
selection analysis within the Chicago MSA for a different retail sector.
Specifically, you will;
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Select
a retail sector for your research and
notify me of your choice by email,
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Analyze purchasing patterns by census tract in that sector
using total, per capita and/or per household figures,
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Identify the census tracts with the highest levels of
purchases,
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Identify the key demographic, ethnic, socioeconomic, and
lifestyle cluster characteristics of these tracts,
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Analyze the geographic coverage of the market area in this
sector by existing retailers, and
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Identify the best existing opportunity for a new retail
outlet in this sector, that is an attractive area within the MSA which is
not served or inadequately served by existing outlets.
Final Product
Your final product will be a 10-15 page written report in which
you describe your analysis, your results and your recommendations for location
of a new retail outlet in the sector you have chosen. Your report
should be consistent with the stylistic
expectations of the course.
You should include in your report at least,
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3 maps illustrating market characteristics and your
recommendation (one of these may be a separate page, the remainder should be
integrated into the report),
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3 tables and 3 charts (ArcView or Excel) presenting results
of your analysis,
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a database report (ArcView or Access) presenting summary
listings of relevant data, and
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(optionally) an 11x17 or 13x19 poster exhibit of map, table
and/or chart data which illustrates and supports the recommendations in your
report.
Some Hints
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You have no doubt observed the weaknesses of ArcView in
tasks related to data manipulation, graphing, data table presentation and
database reporting. I encourage you (though it is not a requirement)
to use other applications such as Excel, Word and Access to perform these
functions and integrate them into your work. This approach is, in
fact, consistent with the current gradual process of integrating business
geographics tools with traditional business tools and processes.
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You may have noticed the relatively spare set of
instructions for this project, which is designed to simulate the situation
you might encounter in the workplace as the resident expert in BG. You
will likely be given a general request with broad latitude in how you choose
to accomplish it. That is the idea here.
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Your datasets for this project are much more like those you
would purchase directly from a research firm such as CACI. You will
likely spend considerably more of your time massaging this data than you
have in previous exercises. This also is designed to render this
project more realistic, as the bulk of time in this type of project is often
spent in acquisition and preparation of data rather than in analysis and
presentation of results.
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Contact me as soon as you can with problems so you can stay
on schedule. Good luck.
Individual projects are due on
the date specified in the Course Schedule.
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