Using digital maps as a basis for sales territory planning saves time and makes it easy to share and update results. A crucial factor is the selection of the regional level to be used as a planning basis. The regional boundaries must be detailed and form an enclosed geometry without gaps or overlaps. Only then can these regions be combined to form external sales force territories.

Postcode maps are an ideal planning basis, as postal regions provide comprehensive coverage in almost all countries. Postcodes also offer advantages when defining external sales force territories: The most detailed postcode level in urban areas is usually very granular, while postcode regions in rural regions are generally somewhat larger. This fluctuation in size typically correlates with population density and, as such, is a good point of reference for fairly distributing the sales force workload according to driving times and number of customers.

Thanks to the fact that every address in a company's data contains a postcode, it's easy to associate data with maps, such as customers' places of residence, turnover and sales force assignments. In Europe, postcode regions are generally already optimized according to accessibility by the postal organizations. This means that national boundaries such as rivers and mountains have been taken into account - a definite bonus when carrying out sales territory planning on a detailed level. Multi-level hierarchies can be easily created, including ones from branch-specific cartographic sources such as IMS structures in the pharmaceutical industry.

The digital medium allows for a quick creation and optimization of sales territories according to geographic criteria - e.g., territories of a similar size that cohere well together, offer good accessibility and a fair distribution of market potential.

For Europe-wide sales territory planning, GfK GeoMarketing offers detailed, up-to-date maps, particularly postcode and administrative maps, but also branch-specific maps such as IMS regions for the pharmaceutical industry and press distribution areas (Grosso regions) for publishers. Maps are available in all standard formats for immediate use in GIS, BI, CRM and geomarketing software.