GIS for Rural Marketing  Vijay Amanna Vijay.amanna@igenesys.com Suruchi Raina Suruchi.raina@igenesys.com Genesys International Corporation Limited, SEEPZ, Mumbai -96 Introduction In today's business marketplace, effective use and flow of information is the key to success. Business information parameters like sales, customer inventory, potential market segmentation and demographic profile form the defining factors for all industrial segments like FMCG, Retail, Real-estate, Insurance, Pharmaceutical, etc. Since most of this data has geographical location, it becomes important to use GIS for analyzing them spatially (Bal Krishna & Pia, CSDMS). Business GIS and mapping have evolved into a formidable tool by which corporate world can use spatial information to manage their business. GIS customized to corporate requirements, holds immense potential for improving productivity of any organization. Especially for companies trying to identify uncovered markets, GIS would efficiently assist in identification of new customers, optimize media campaigns, cutting costs, finding new retail distribution centers, aligning sales territories to utilize the sales force efficiently and monitoring business trends/performance spatially. Conventional database management software can only answer statistical questions like how many potential customers are out there and which territory has the highest growth. GIS applications, in contrast can relate all this information geographically. It also allows the user to spatially visualize data thus revealing hidden relationships, patterns and trends. For example GIS can answer queries like which locations in the city are suitable for a certain retail outlet location? What route should distribution trucks take to minimize delivery cost and time? Which are the potential rural areas having great scope for marketing particular product? This paper presents a case study to show how implementation of GIS has helped a multinational advertising agency in improving understanding, productivity and efficiency in Indian market scenario. It also looks into the details of how GIS has been customized to fulfill user's requirement. Requirement Analysis This case study demonstrating the advantages of Business GIS, explores a GIS application devised for marketing and sales. This application was conceptualized when an advertising agency took decision to move to GIS as the information system to improve their work system in the field of rural marketing campaigns in India. Market analysis and designing route plans for Rural and Semi-urban campaigns being their main stream of working, required Geo-demographic analysis. Following requirements were recognized:
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