Welcome to
Microsoft MapPoint�,
the mapping product that helps everyday business people use geographic and
demographic information to make better business decisions.
The following scenarios demonstrate just a few ways business professionals
can use MapPoint version 2002 in their work.
Manager
Business Manager
�
Examine trends in data. What is the average household income level in the
communities where your best performing stores are located? How do your sales
compare by population level? Such information can be extremely useful when
you're planning for growth, but may seem too difficult or time-consuming to
put together. With MapPoint, you can easily contrast demographic trends
against data your organization already has. Use data stored in Microsoft
Excel, Microsoft Access, Microsoft Outlook�
contacts, or any other Microsoft Data Link�compliant data source, and
compare it to demographic information stored in MapPoint. With 70 different
demographic variables to choose from, you can analyze your business on the
basis of a variety of factors such as income, age, population, and
gender�all on the same map.
�
Impress your colleagues with meaningful reports.
Do you distribute your revenue report in a spreadsheet but still get
questions from peers about the data? Representing that same data on a map
may give them the visual cues they need to understand and remember the
information quickly. Shade sales regions and territories by revenue, then
highlight pockets of underperforming areas so business trends are noticed
and acted upon.
�
Share your information. Communicate important data with the entire organization
or customers by saving your map as a Web page. Include hyperlinks so
coworkers can easily navigate to specific regions, locations, and related
documents. Need to make a presentation? Simply cut and paste your map into a
Microsoft Word document or Microsoft PowerPoint� presentation. Your audience will appreciate the clarity a map
provides.
Sales Manager
�
Mark your territory. Sales organizations are often structured by territory,
but what if your territories don't follow a traditional geographic divide?
Perhaps your top performer handles the West Coast plus the state of
Florida. Such disparities
can make the generation of sales reports a manual, time-consuming process.
Reporting by territory is simplified when you create custom territories in
MapPoint. An easy-to-follow wizard enables you to import existing territory
definitions or create your own directly in the map.
�
Know your competition. Collecting data about your business is very helpful, but
mapping that data against your competition can be even more valuable. By
plotting a competitor's information on a map, you can gain insight about
your competitor's sales by region, income, or population. Compare the
locations where your competitor is active with your sales regions or
territories, and then map your sales volumes to see who's getting more
revenue from particular locations.
Mobile Professional
Business Traveler
�
Find your way around. Trying to find a hotel in an unfamiliar city can be
frustrating. With MapPoint, you can get addresses and directions without
having to be connected to the Internet. Need to stop by an ATM on the way?
Find one using Nearby Places data in MapPoint. Never been to
Wichita and need to take
your client to a nice lunch? MapPoint includes detailed information, right
down to the steak house on
Douglas Street�with
telephone number and address. Have a mobile device? You can export maps,
Pushpins, and points of interest from MapPoint to Microsoft Pocket Streets,
and then have the information close at hand when you're away from your PC or
laptop.
�
Optimize your time. Your plane departs in four hours, and you still need to
visit three very important customers. Save time by optimizing your route.
With the optimization tool, MapPoint reorders the intermediate stops so that
travel time between start and end points is the most time-efficient. You can
also create drive-time zones that account for traffic levels and
construction work so you can make that flight.
Real Estate Agent
�
Identify the right neighborhood for your clients.
Your new clients have very specific requirements about the type of
neighborhood they want. Their ideal home has to be 12 miles or 10 minutes
from the office, within a specific ZIP Code for school district selection,
and with access to public transportation. Using MapPoint, you can easily
adapt your search to these criteria and present your clients with a visual
representation of the homes that meet their requests. MapPoint allows you to
import data from common applications such as Excel, Access, Outlook, or any
Microsoft Data Link�compliant data source, eliminating the manual process of
plotting addresses on a map.
�
Customize maps for your clients. When you present a set of properties for your
clients to view, you want it to look professional and, most of all,
accurate. What if you could personalize your report for each client? With
custom Pushpins you can highlight places of interest based on your client's
preferences and specifications. Does your client frequent a particular
coffeehouse or restaurant or want to be near a particular childcare? Create
a map that visually represents the distances between your client's preferred
places and the properties you've selected.
Developer
�
Automate repetitive tasks. The MapPoint object model was extended to provide
programmable access to more than 95 percent of the functionality of
MapPoint. Now you can extend that functionality and build Component Object
Model (COM) add-ins that trigger and automate tasks.
�
Embed MapPoint functionality into mission-critical applications.
MapPoint 2002 also includes a Microsoft ActiveX�
control that enables you to embed MapPoint functionality into the
mission-critical applications that your organization uses every day. Add
maps to your customer relationship management (CRM) system to pinpoint the
locations of all your prospective and current customers. Incorporate a map
that shows actual sales against projected sales for the territories of each
salesperson. Automate the geographic filtering of prospects for promotions,
thereby minimizing the expense of mailing outside the scope of influence of
your stores. |