Prediction: Location Intelligence

Prediction is Experian Business Strategies' best-practice approach to researching and modeling retail performance. Our goal is to provide accurate predictions to help drive your strategy and growth.

We help real estate developers with their investment decisions and their site marketing. We also help retailers, restaurant chains, banks and leisure companies understand the performance of their existing store portfolios, and decide where to locate and what concepts to apply in particular places.

Accuracy, consistency, transparency
Our commitment is to generate predictions that are as accurate, consistent and transparent as possible. We achieve this by building models that are fully customized to the characteristics of individual markets, trade areas, sites and retailers. We start by analyzing the entire United States from a retail perspective. That allows us to generate mathematical scores for every possible retail location, in relation to any individual retailer, sector or concept. Then we develop a huge range of indicators, such as trade area statistics, sales forecasts, impact assessments and risk measures, for any locations that a client is specifically considering. And we provide reports, graphs and maps, that easily communicate the facts from which we started, the logic that we have followed, and the conclusions of our modeling.

A vital component in the whole process is to analyze the interactions between stores, to ensure that clients locate near businesses that will draw traffic to them, and to assess the influence of the local retail environment on store performance . We also model the links between bricks-and-mortar retailing, catalogs and on-line retailing, to ensure optimal channel choices.

Unlike most of our competitors, who stick to particular modeling techniques or at best, choose their methods based on ‘hunches', we use Artificial Intelligence to choose which range of modeling techniques is appropriate to any specific challenge. This method, developed by Experian Business Strategies' Global Product Architect Dr. Rich Fenker, and using our proprietary CHARMS technology, provides clients with the reassurance that whatever technique or combination of techniques we adopt – including gravity modeling, linear regression and time series – has been selected logically for optimum predictive performance.

From basic research to on-going client support
Before we even start to build the models, we first undertake a program of discovery and research, to understand fully the characteristics that we need to model. We also assemble a wealth of information. Experian has data on more than 95% of individuals in America and 98% of households, plus information on more than 16 million businesses. Our Mosaic lifestyle segmentation system is a key element in generating intelligence on local markets, and we have access to market leading information on store locations across the U.S.

After our main modeling work is done, we present our results and modify them in the light of client feedback. Some of our clients simply take our conclusions, and use them to inform their strategic thinking. Others subscribe to on-going support packages, calling on us when they need to. But most choose to run our models themselves, using them on a regular basis to drive location or investment decisions, or understand retail performance. That is possible because our models are intuitive and easy to run. It is easy for clients to input their own judgments, and to run alternative scenarios, and we are always available by telephone to help, if needed.

Broadening the marketplace
Originally developed for the U.S. market by our research and modeling team in Irving, TX and Santa Fe, NM, Prediction is now sold internationally by Experian Business Strategies as part of our global offer. Clients with international portfolios can therefore select a single modeling solution that they can apply consistently across borders. In addition, Prediction can be deployed alongside other parts of our solution set, such as our FootFall customer counting capability, which tracks store performance, or our Micromarketer Generation3 desktop geomarketing tool.