Territory mapping software (TMS) is used by retail businesses everywhere, from global billion-dollar organizations to small enterprises. Franchise territory mapping software has been fine-tuned over time to ensure it can meet the sales needs of any industry.
TMS enables collaboration between sales managers and sales staff to achieve greater efficiency and improve profits. It also provides visually oriented data via interactive maps, which leads to the discovery of insights that would be difficult to see using spreadsheets alone.
Franchise Territory Allocation
Many franchisors grant territorial exclusivity rights to their franchisees in order to assure franchisees have exclusive access to a given business area. With such rights intact, no entity under the brand may encroach on that territory. This way the franchisor ensures that the businesses working under their umbrella will not needlessly compete, potentially damaging franchise business development, and the reputation of the brand.
Some of the standard ways to isolate a territory are: demarcating by street, by zip code or according to a given radial distance emanating from a central location. But, as we will see TMS allows for even more sophisticated territory crafting capabilities than these. But, no matter which method is used, the key to territory optimization is to minimize internal competition and conflict between branches over the same set of consumers.
Market Saturation
As the franchise expands, franchisors will seek to increase the number of franchisees in a given market. This is done to achieve higher profits and royalties. But it can lead from an over-saturation of goods or services from the same brand within that area.
Because no two locations are the same, each market has its own customer demographics. Given the complexity of markets, it may be impossible to apply a single solution for demarcating territories. This is especially true in overseas markets where consumer groups are less familiar.
When franchisees begin to encroach each other, they may begin to feel threatened, leading to a breakdown in relations, a loss of cooperation and the breakdown of profitability. They may begin to eat into each other’s bottom lines. This could lead to one of the two competing shops being put out of business. This, needless to say, is bad for the brand, and it is the most important reason why we have TMS.
How TMS can Carve New Opportunities from Saturated Markets?
As firms continue to wrestle with the problem of over-saturating markets, innovations in TMS have made continued growth possible where franchisees would otherwise come to loggerheads. Below are three important ways TMS is broadening the horizons of franchises even in the face of ever increasing market density.
Conflict Reduction
You will be able to balance your sales territory mapping using multiple data sources. Territories that are balanced based on at least three types of data have been proven much more efficient and effective. Rather than basing a map on just the income or age of a given demographic, territory shaping can be based on several statistics such as these. This enables you to derive the greatest benefit from the efforts of your sales team by apportioning sales opportunities among them more equitably.
Quicker onboarding and clear demarcation boost profits and improves efficiency. This prevents territory overlap, which can increase sales and reduce costs. Effective territory mapping removes unproductive friction between franchises. This allows for better market coverage, making sales teams much more effective. Many companies say this improves cooperation among their disparate sales teams, and that those teams that are located remotely require less direct supervision as they engage in seamless collaboration. Cloud-based mapping solutions allow them to collaborate and agree on the definitions of territories automatically by using live maps- regardless of their location.
Macro & Micro Territory Management
Efficiently divide large target areas into smaller, more manageable regions. By visualizing a territory in a map you will gain a clearer perspective of both the scope and detail of a given franchise’s influence. Using TMS, you can get an overview of an entire territory or group of territories.
You can also see how a given territory cuts across a given small, but strategic part of towns such as a tourist causeway, or other highly trafficked locations. TMS allows you to easily assign and reassign territories to various sales teams enabling you to provide more balanced workloads for a greater overall earning potential among your sales teams. This will improve employee morale, lead to greater motivation, lower turnover- and most importantly- better sales. You may overlay geographic regions and points for reference. Overlaying third party data can help you to identify important insights within your markets.
Produce vibrant, interactive maps for use in presentations and reports. Territory maps can be easily shared either publicly or privately online or printed as high-quality hard copies.
Streamlined Management Performance
Build hierarchies that match your firm’s reporting structure. Using territorial power-structures will create more flexibility, improve collaboration and streamline activities via delegation between managers and sales teams. Every member of your sales department at all levels can easily view and manage the territories they are responsibility for.
Cultivate better sales leads. TMS enables each sales representative to see their territory clearly so that they can focus on leads and prospects within their market.
Optimize sales calls with finely tuned routing using route optimization features. Sales teams in the field will reduce their travel costs, increase fuel efficiency and reach and a greater number of customers within their territory.
Raising all Ships
All of these advantages will work to reduce waste and conflict while enhancing clarity for sales personnel, and those in all levels of management. As TMS becomes a standard resource in every corner of the sales and retail industry, it is reasonable to expect that everyone will benefit, from the consumer all the way up to the CEO. As this technology works to lubricate commerce, we believe an insofar missing element of grace will work its way into the economy and culture as a whole.
