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From the first steps to consolidation
A recent Mapfry research noted that most of the professionals who work in the area claim to have “parachuted” and, during this initial experience, they saw their involvement with everyday challenges and the glimpse of the possibilities that the area provides grow.
A Geomarketing professional deals with issues central to a company's strategy, especially in retail, where the three priorities are location, location, location.
This exposure to the executive committees is encouraging for beginning professionals, who now have access to the company's “way of thinking”, the essence of its strategy.
Few careers allow beginning professionals to be so involved in topics typical of senior management. This is always encouraging and a source of learning of all kinds.
It is a profession of the future, for which there are still few courses¹ and the training path is usually the practical one.
(1) You can find a list of courses at the end of this article.
More and more professionals will intentionally arrive at Geomarketing.
If this is your case, it was with you in mind that we prepared this article.
The entrance to a Geomarketing 🐣 area
Via companies
Analyses of the company's relationship with the territory, the purest Geomarketing, are generally attributed to Market Intelligence, Planning and Expansion, or Data departments.
Your first step will be to be part of an area of this type, in general, with the position of Analyst Jr.
The hiring requirements of a Jr. Analyst are quite flexible in relation to the area of training, including courses in Human and Exact Sciences.
In addition to graduation, it is important that an analytical base has already been formed, not only quantitative, but also qualitative.
The balance between the perception of human patterns and their translation into numbers will be a challenge throughout a career in Geomarketing.
Via consultancies
Specialists in their fields of activity, consultancies are partners of companies that prefer to outsource areas that are not operational, or dislocated from their focus.
This is also the case because smaller companies, with a moderate expansion rate, end up offering less growth opportunity for professionals with a talent for Geomarketing.
Hence the preference for working with specialized consultancies, which renew their expertise in projects for various clients and are able to develop talented professionals in the consultant's path.
The major challenge for those who start with a consultancy is the level of entry requirements, since the volume of work is large and even the managing partners get their hands dirty.
This leaves little time for internal development, reinforcing the preference for professionals who are already trained, whether in courses or other experiences, that may come together.
On the other hand, consultancies place greater value on the soundness of academic training, being a good starting point for those who invested in this line.
On your own
This is a rare path, but one that tends to be more common going forward.
It so happens that geotechnologies have always involved high costs, (1) such as training and access to georeferencing systems, (2) the preparation of cartographic bases, and (3) georeferenced data to be associated with these maps.
1 - The cost of a desktop GIS system license and training could exceed 20 thousand reais.
2 and 3 - Map and data bases could cost 100,000 each depending on the coverage area.
We currently find very accessible map sources such as Open Street Maps or even Google Maps when the use is less intensive.
The 2010 Census has already been conducted with Use of GPS, which greatly facilitated the association of their databases with the maps.
In addition, tools such as BatchGeo they allow the geocoding of small bases free of charge.
The biggest obstacle remained access to geographical analysis systems, which were still expensive in their licenses and complex, requiring a long learning curve.
Mapfry changes this dynamic by providing a fast, simple and affordable solution.
It already includes the data and maps part well resolved and its user-friendly interface shortens the time until the first results are obtained.
This set of changes allows qualified professionals to move through Geomarketing and associate their knowledge with the power of maps.
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So much Vacancies in companies and consultancies ask for some experience in Geomarketing tools.
Create your account and start practicing.
The first experiences 🐥
Whether through a company or consultancy, the first steps of a Geomarketing professional usually include the execution of pre-defined analysis processes.
The beginning professional will follow a recipe for:
- Data collection
- Base treatment
- Data mapping
- Understanding phenomena on maps
The challenge of collecting data is usually very prestigious, because we know how to live in a world where data is rich and available, but difficult to find and format. However, it is rare to seek this skill in beginners.
Among the challenges listed above, the most exhaustive is usually the treatment of bases, especially when mapping is the intention.
A typical problem is the standardization of street names.
Several cities in Brazil have an avenue or street called Presidente Juscelino Kubitschek or JK.
Someone can switch streets for avenues, a very common mistake.
Someone may have omitted the title of President, going straight to the name.
Imagine the different ways of writing Kubitschek.
The President's full name was Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira and some streets follow this pattern.
Just the name of a street can be a nightmare multiplied by hundreds of thousands of other factors.
Therefore, if you are skilled in processing databases, whether via Excel, Python, R, SQL, Power BI, or some easily accessible solution, you have a good chance of getting the job.
After processing the databases, the mapping process holds its surprises and depends on a close look at the map.
Addresses that were supposed to be mapped in a Brazilian city may appear in Europe.
If this occurs, it will be easy to notice the error, but if the error appears within the same state or city, it will be difficult to identify.
This includes a critical eye and a certain malice that only comes with experience.
Finally, the most valuable stage, the analysis of phenomena on maps.
This step requires familiarity with some Geo tool, whether the more traditional ones such as ArcGIS or QGis, the classic ones such as Geofusion, Economapas and Cognatis, or the group of startups that include Mapfry, Matched and Datlo.
Whatever the tool, the beginning professional must follow an analysis sequence.
This makes your life much easier at this stage, as there are infinite possible paths.
Over time, professionals will be more comfortable proposing other approaches, creating methodologies, and even modeling databases.
In the beginning, a cake recipe helps, but there is no cake recipe for all Geomarketing, which is more a human science than an exact one.
Advancing Your Career in Geomarketing 🐤
A few years ahead, professionals who have dealt well with the challenges of beginning their careers will have before them the prospect of growth and leadership.
Much is said about a career in Y, which is the possibility of pursuing only as a specialist or accumulating the role of people manager.
The reality is less like Y, and specialists will essentially end up finding more space in consultancies than in companies, which reserve more opportunities for managers.
Career levels starting as an Analyst or Consultant involve gaining experience in the 4 stages mentioned above and advances in the most noble ones, which are data collection and analysis of phenomena on maps.
At this point, treatment and base mapping activities will be conducted by other beginning professionals, freeing the senior professional to dedicate themselves to investigations.
Official sources such as IBGE, Microdata, DataSUS, Bacen, Receita Federal, CAGED must be mastered.
Some municipalities promote open data policies and also set up excellent sources.
As they progress, professionals start to deal with less structured aspects, the cake recipe is no longer sufficient to provide all the answers, other approaches may be necessary.
Therefore, mastering techniques such as competitor analysis, flow generating points, data geocoding, heat maps, areas of influence, consumer profile, spatial correlation, clustering, statistical regression, and others will be useful to arrive at the missing answers.
This is a time when professionals seek a Postgraduate degree in business, as they foresee the challenges of the future.
Professional maturity 🐓
Around 10 years of career, or close to the famous 10,000 hours of dedication, a stage in which proficiency is achieved in something, the professional will have mastered the list of techniques and their real effect on the business.
This sometimes skeptical view has seen a lot of fads go by, come back with new names and knows how to separate what is foam.
This ingredient of personal experience is the key to the next developments in your career.
As has already been said, there is no recipe for cake in Geomarketing, the spectrum of approaches is wide, without absolute answers, everything is relative.
You may have heard of very assertive billing projection models.
This is undoubtedly a high-level delivery, but the models are right until they are no longer there.
And it will be the sensitivity, fruit of experience, that will allow them to be reconstructed in their assertiveness.
The maturity crisis
The more the Geomarketing professional develops, the more removed from those 4 original activities and involved in other aspects of professional life.
At this point you may be exercising a management or technical leadership role, being the reference for young professionals in the company or consultancy.
Teaching is the highest form of learning, so this career moment is fundamental to solidify previous experiences.
Even so, this can be a frustrating phase, in which the professional is aware of their capacity and feels that they are not being well used.
Those who embrace a career in people management will be challenged in the field of leadership, a topic that escapes this article.
This is a critical moment, in which many may find themselves frustrated and leave the career they worked so hard to build.
Reasons for the crisis
Remember when we said that Geomarketing professionals are exposed, from the beginning of their careers, to the company's strategy and interaction with senior management?
Because, if at the beginning this was motivating, over time, this same aspect became a source of frustration.
Living together reveals that important choices are made based on vanity, executive personal agendas are imposed, and solid studies are disqualified when they do not meet these expectations.
In the midst of the crisis, professionals with sufficient ethical elasticity to alter studies according to expectations may still appear. Seeing these professionals being prestigious increases frustration.
This is the moment when you discover that all the dedication to the study is not enough to make a difference, the game of interests comes into question and the word maturity is being tested in another dimension.
Exits from the crisis
Whether or not the professional experienced a crisis, which I sincerely hope they have experienced, since it will be an accelerator for what is to come.
When at the beginning of a career in Geomarketing, studying is an enormous challenge, so we imagine that by mastering it we will be able to dominate the business world.
Only to discover that when mastering Geomarketing, another challenge takes shape.
The challenge of a graduate professional is to maneuver a company based on data (Data Driven) in the midst of the competitive environment.
Right now, what matters least is your technical proficiency.
As a Manager or Head in companies or Director in a Consultancy, you must be able to form a team that has the right competencies.
Correctly speaking, technical mastery will be important to form this team, to be a reference for them, not for you to do the work for them.
You will be a navigator in this hazy environment and you will have your X-ray vision in the data.
As in the verses of Argument, Paulinho da Viola's song:
Do like an old sailor
What during the fog
Take the boat slowly
Graduated in Geomarketing 🐔
By now the professional already knows the limits of Geomarketing and is at peace with that.
Dazzled souls stood in the way, preferring to embrace a new trend, another profession of the future.
Honestly, it's even good that this is the case, the value of graduates is higher.
Professionals who achieve this stage will hold the seats of Expansion Director, Executive Committee, and Board of Directors when in companies, or Partner when in Consultancy Offices.
Since at this stage it is possible to exchange between days, the difference between Consultants and Executives is no longer so striking.
Several Executives open their Consultancy Offices and Consultants are invited to Committees and Boards.
CAPEX versus OPEX
CAPEX, from English Capital Expenditure, which means capital expenditures and investments.
Geomarketing professionals lived their careers in CAPEX, so they dedicated most of their time to evaluating and proposing forms of investment for a part of the profits generated by the operation or by some capitalization event, such as acquisition or IPO. They are the ones who plant the seeds.
Other directors and advisors will have attained their executive positions from careers in OPEX, Operating Expenditure, which means operating expenses or costs. They are the ones who harvest.
Coming from commercial and operational areas, these professionals worked under pressure from competitors, the economic environment, crises in people management, robberies, and fought bravely for the positive operating result, profit.
A career in OPEX can be very tough and can form extremely objective professionals, unaffected by relativism and the probabilities of studying.
There is a natural conflict between CAPEX and OPEX professionals, with some blaming others for poor performance or attributing good results to themselves.
CAPEX people always understand that the sales potential was there and any failure is one of execution.
OPEX people feel that each store has been poorly studied and is a bomb that they must disarm.
Almost like in the movie Elite Troop, when we discover that police battalions attribute crimes to neighboring battalions' areas to improve their numbers.
Those who come from CAPEX, such as Geomarketing people, and arrive here, have already learned to respect this history of the OPEX people and build with it.
A professional who has built his career in Geomarketing can help to make investment decisions more promising, so that their return rates are higher and more sustainable, that is, with lower operating costs.
Any CEO would like to have that kind of advice.
Consolidation 🦅
Whether in the role of Advisor or Consultant, the graduate professional will be exposed to the heart of the company's strategy, having a complete notion of the microeconomy that leads to profits and its relationship with the external environment.
This knowledge has enormous value beyond the reality of the company, since the relationship between financial results and the market environment is a topic of general interest.
The professional who reaches this level will receive honorable invitations to speak at events, publish articles, and open the door to an academic career as a specialist teacher.
Finally, after arduous years of walking, the professional who started his career in Geomarketing will be inhabiting the centers of business decision and training of other professionals.
This level is reserved for those who experienced their crises, doubted themselves and the quality of their choices, overcame typical setbacks at the beginning and middle of their careers, saw professionals who admired migrating to other areas, and yet reaffirmed their initial choice.
The strength of the habits acquired over the course of his career preserves his curiosity about human nature, which continues to be satiated by the study routine, the preparation of classes, lectures and everything else that means giving back to the world what he managed to form in himself.
“I fought the good fight, completed my career, and kept the faith.”
List of Geomarketing Training Courses
ESPM - GEOMARKETING IN PRACTICE - THE POTENTIAL OF THE SQUARE
USP - MBA in Physical and Online Retail
Distance learning postgraduate degree in Geomarketing and Market Intelligence
Geomarketing Books
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