eReviews: BusinessDecision

CIVICTechnologies, Inc., www.businessdecision.info/home.asp

BusinessDecision (BD) is a web-based reporting service combining GIS mapping technology with consumer household data, demographics, and market segmentation information, targeted at serving small-business owners. There are versions for public libraries and for academic libraries; the interface is the same, but the reporting options differ. Data come from Census 2000, ESRI (the Environmental Systems Research Institute) proprietary demographic updates, Acxiom's InfoBase consumer database, and Mediamark Research Inc.'s national consumer survey, and the system uses ESRI's Business Analyst Online interface (CIVICTechnologies is an ESRI business partner). Data and five-year demographic forecasts are updated annually in July.

The content includes reports and maps for Census 2000 Summary Profiles, Demographic and Income Profiles, Graphic Profiles, Housing Profiles, Market Profile Reports, Retail Expenditures, Standard Site Maps, Tapestry Area Profiles, and Thematic Maps. And BD's marketing boasts that it is both "easy to set up" (for librarians) and "easy to learn and use" (for patrons). Let's see about that.

HOW DOES IT WORK? The Business Analyst Online software opens with a list of "My Projects" and tabs to go to "My Previous Reports," "My Preferences," and "My Subscription Status" (necessary since a library can subscribe to different levels of data). Most important for me, a non-GIS specialist, there's one—that's right, one—action button that cuts out any uncertainty for new users: Start a New Project >. You click it and are asked to give your project a name, and then you follow the four steps identified by the system for gathering and displaying your data: 1) you specify a location and define a study area, 2) you choose the reports you want to run to analyze the location, lifestyle, and buying behaviors of the households in your area's market, 3) you create maps online to visualize the data in the reports, and 4) you apply the results to your marketing and sales plans. You're guided through these steps by the file's wizard setup.

CAN YOU USE IT? Let me be really clear about this: I am not a GIS expert. More than that, I am slightly GIS-phobic, having been metaphorically mauled by TIGER/Line data in an ArcGIS experience earlier in my career. (No, I don't want to talk about it.) So I was pleasantly surprised to be guided into this system by that one choice button, Start a New Project. I clicked on it, and was asked to give my project a name (doughnuts), and then to choose a Site Study Area or a Geographic Unit Study Area. I chose to do a Site Study using an Address or Intersection. Next, the system prompted me to give an address (I used a building across the street from my library), and then asked me to Specify Study Areas by Rings, Donuts, Drive Times, or a Hand-drawn Shape. I chose rings, and the system let me specify the distance, in miles of my three overlapping rings. I left the defaults.

At that point, I could have added other sites (the system lets you add up to 100 sites for analysis!), but I just opted to Choose Reports, which took me to a screen giving me the option to choose any or all of the following reports and maps: Tapestry Segmentation Area Profile, Market Profile, Graphic Profile, Demographic and Income Profile, Housing Profile, Disposable Income Profile, Net Worth Profile, Age by Income Profile, Detailed Income Profile, Age by Sex Profile, Age by Race Profile, Detailed Age Profile, Age 55+ Profile, 1990-2000 Comparison Profile, Census 2000 Detailed Race Profile, Census 2000 Summary Profile, Retail Goods and Services Expenditures, Automotive Aftermarket Expenditures, Financial Expenditures, House and Home Expenditures, Household Budget Expenditures, Medical Expenditures, Recreation Expenditures, Standard Site Map, Thematic Map, and Enhanced Site Map (one map per site). Woof.

I chose Tapestry Segmentation Area Profile, Market Profile, Graphic Profile, House and Home Expenditures, and the Standard Site Map. I was taken to a screen that gave me the opportunity to confirm my selections and to select the output format for my reports (PDF or Excel; the maps are PDF only). I clicked once to generate the reports and clicked again to process them. One minute and ten seconds later, I was viewing the extremely rich and detailed reports and the map that came with them.

Here are a few examples of the content: the Tapestry identifies Life Modes groups and Urbanization groups, among others, with categories including Aspiring Young Families, Retirement Communities, Family Foundations, Old and Newcomers, Young and Restless, Inner City Tenants, City Dimensions, and Dorms to Diplomas. Market Segment identifies income and population with myriad factors including projections into 2012. The Graphic Profile provides bar and pie charts arranging this information into a visually accessible format. The Standard Site Map gave both contextual (within the country and the greater Boston area) and detailed views. And that's just one search/project.

It's easy to delete projects from the initial screen, and that screen keeps track of the last accessed date for reports. I have just scratched the surface of this file—it would take reams of pages to cover all it can do. And in case you haven't noticed, I haven't kvetched once about using it. It is that easy.

WHAT'S THE COST? The annual subscription ranges from $2500 to $28,000, depending on a number of factors, including your type of institution, number of enrolled FTE or size of population served, and the scope of reports to which you want to subscribe (national, regional, or core-based statistical area). Subscriptions include access to an unlimited number of simultaneous users, both on-site and remotely.

HOW GOOD IS IT? I'm not intimately familiar with every other GIS project presently available on the market, so I'm judging this one on its own merits combined with my past (shudder!) experiences with GIS. For content, ease of use, elegance of delivery, and overall sophistication combined with clear simplicity, BD gets a strong 10.

BOTTOM LINE Any library serving local businesses and researchers with GIS data and delivery should take a look at this product, if not for your own sake, then for that of your users.