UA offers new business geographics course

This month, for the first time, the University of Arkansas will offer a full-semester course on business geographics.

Business geographics uses geographic information systems, sometimes called GIS, technology to assist businesses. The technology can be applied to many areas of business, including trade area analysis, site selection, address matching, direct marketing and direct mailing. It has practical applications in health care, real estate, retail, banking and telecommunications.

With customer addresses, business geographics can be used to plot maps to determine where customers live and if new stores are needed to serve them better. The technology can also be used by a siding company, for example, to determine where older homes are that may need new siding.

“You’re able to take the data you already have accumulated and visualize it,” says Brian Culpepper, a GIS specialist in the UA’s Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies.

Culpepper will teach the class each Thursday night during the spring semester along with Stephen Pollard, a program specialist in institutional research at the UA. Only 10 slots are available for students for the first course, but if the senior-level geography course is successful, it may be offered more frequently. Culpepper says the course is geared toward business professionals and students in the UA’s Sam M. Walton College of Business Administration.

For years, the high cost of this technology has meant that only large companies, like Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Tyson Foods Inc., could afford it. But prices have been dropping rapidly, and small businesses can now afford to use business geographics on site, says Culpepper.

“Five years ago, this technology was almost untouchable,” says Culpepper. “University types were doing it because we had the resources. Now small businesses can do it.”

Seven years ago, to set up an on-site business geographics system would have cost about $30,000 for a UNIX computer workstation, another $30,000 for software and $45,000 to $50,000 per year to hire someone to operate the system. Now, all businesses need to do business geographics is a $3,000 computer, software that ranges from $400 to $1,500 in price and a trained employee. In addition, the cost of commercial data, compiled and sold by companies such as Acxiom Corp. in Conway, has also come down in price.

Culpepper says the course being offered by the UA will be a good introduction to business geographics, but students will have to continue training to become experts in the field.

“After one class, you’re not going to be a pro,” says Culpepper. “The class will introduce students to what’s possible. It will introduce them to the tools available. It’s a special problems course.”

Students who enroll in the class will need to be familiar with a basic word processing software and either Microsoft Windows NT, Windows 95 or Windows 98. In the class, students will learn to operate three different kinds of business geographics software, from Intergraph, Environmental Systems Research Institute and MapInfo Corp.

In another two years, companies that use business geographics will also have access to “the seamless warehouse of Arkansas geodata,” also known as SWAG, a $2 million database of Arkansas information that’s currently being compiled.

Previously, individual companies had to pay the expense of training employees to use business geographics technology.

“About 80 percent of all business information has some spatial aspects to it, something pertaining to location — ZIP code, addresses, etc.,” says Culpepper. “Being able to visualize that stuff, I think, is the key. It’s hard to pick out an industry that would not benefit from these technologies, or who are not currently using it.”