Here's What Every Business Intelligence Analyst || Data Analyst Need's to Know Everything about Thematic Maps.

What are thematic maps?

With so much information being collected in the business world today, we must have a way to paint a picture of that data so we can interpret it in order to get a clear idea of what the information means.

We use a thematic map which is a type of map that portrays the geographic pattern of a particular subject matter (theme) in a geographic area. This usually involves the use of map symbols, colors, shades patterned in relation to a value to visualize selected properties of geographic features to reveal hidden patterns, insight & trends to helps us with a clear picture & a holistic understanding in order to brings trends to life & makes insights much easier to spot.

We have different types of maps:

·        Heat Maps

A heat map depicts the density of a specific phenomenon or feature over its related location. Shading is used to indicate areas of greater or lesser density.

·        Dot density maps

Dot density maps use a large number of points, dots or polygons to show the density of the numeric values on a map. The higher the dots in an area, the higher the concentration of the selected value.

·        Graduated and proportional symbol maps

The dots in graduated and proportional symbol maps change in size as per the numeric value of the element they represent.

·        Choropleth or Ranges maps

These are the most widely used and popular thematic maps. Shades, colours and patterns are utilized to depict the distribution of statistical data (like quantity, density, percent, value) on a map to display the differences across geographies.

Who uses thematic maps?

Industries using spatial analysis and the ones that benefit from pattern recognition leverage these maps. Here’s a non-exhaustive list of industries and businesses that use thematic mapping.

This is primarily why businesses and industries need thematic maps.

Media

 ROI -Improve ROI, reduce ad waste and increase footfall.

Analysis-Perform competitive analysis.

Audience-Strategies ad placement and target the right audience.

Telecommunication

Coverage-Assess coverage and plan expansion in specific areas.

Competitive Edge-Gain a competitive edge over other networks and services

Proximity-Expand customer base by providing stores in ideal proximity.

Retail

Competition-Identify competition in a particular neighborhood.

 Analysis-Site and footfall analysis for new stores and point of sales.

Expansion-Plan expansion in a new city or country

Public sector

Facilities-Improve public services based on the availability of facilities.

 Infrastructure-Optimize and monitor traffic, healthcare, and public infrastructure.

Plans-Create crime/disaster response plans by mapping SOS services.

Property

 POI-Map dining, schools, hospital, and facilities around new projects

Valuation-Neighborhood assessment for competition & valuation research

Location-Enrich online selling and renting platforms with location precision.

Market research

Service-Improve service by understanding customers’ patterns and catering to their needs and preferences.

Market-Companies learn about new opportunities, business potential, and areas where it may be under-performing.

Target-Help them target potential customers and entice existing ones.

Insurance

Risk-Map buildings and structures in disaster-prone zones

Control-Insurance companies can widen their customer base, control and minimize risks, accelerate claim procedures, and improve fraud detection with location intelligence data.

Crime & Theft-More in-depth LI data like region-specific crime rates related to car theft, severe weather conditions of the city or state will provide additional information to the insurer.

Why should I use thematic maps?

Thematic maps pull in attributes or statistics about a location and represent that data in a way that enables a greater understanding of the relationships between locations and the discovery of spatial patterns in the data that we are exploring.

Thematic mapping can help you tell a story. You can use a thematic map to explore one specific data attribute. You can also map two or more attributes to uncover more complex spatial patterns.

Other benefits:

·        Better data visualization

·        Helps us with a clear picture

·        Gives a holistic understanding

·        Reveal important insights

·        Brings trends to life

·        Makes insights much easier to spot

These use cases help the analyst depict data in a clear and meaningful way in order to convey a story to decision makers - making it easy for them to convert trends into business strategies.

These maps are very useful when you want to analyze the spatial distribution of your information or look for any geographic patterns and trends contained within your data sets. They are also an excellent way to search for correlations between data in two different locations.

When is the right time to use thematic maps?

Thematic maps convert any non-visual information about a particular subject into an easy visual form. It focuses on the selected theme and features only those reference points that are needed to communicate the purpose of the map and theme effectively.

Thematic maps enable people to trace and spot geographical patterns and trends residing under the datasets.

Thematic mapping can help you tell a story. you can use a thematic map to explore one specific data attribute. you can also map two or more attributes to uncover more complex spatial patterns.

These maps are used by several internal disciplines, including operations, product development and marketing.

Where should thematic maps be used?

These maps can be used for exploratory spatial data analysis, confirming hypotheses, synthesizing spatial data by revealing patterns and relationships, and data presentation.

These maps can also be used to reveal hidden trends, patterns, risks and hotspots and to identify tangible insights while simply looking at spreadsheets and tables may not.

How will thematic maps benefit you?

Use cases of thematic maps differ from industry to industry. Within the industries listed above earlier, these maps are also used by several internal disciplines, including operations, product development and marketing.

We have listed some of the most common business use cases across diverse functional areas:

• Deciding where to develop infrastructure to support services — e.g., areas that need an ATM infrastructure for banking self-services.
• Conduct supply-demand analysis — e.g., study mismatch in demand (orders, booked rides) and supply (riders, cab drivers) to bridge the gap and reduce idle time.
• Assist profitability analysis — e.g., identify suburbs where carpool on-demand service is performing well, identify locations with higher loan default rates, right areas to acquire new users.

• Identify areas to run geomarketing campaigns — e.g., view the areas where electric scooters are legal to run e-scooter rental services’ ad campaigns, measure conversion rates of your marketing activities in each geography.
• Analyse product and project risk — e.g., identify areas prone to calamities like landslides to gauge what should be the insurance coverage rates.
• GeoDefence product/service’s reach — e.g., define delivery areas and serviceable pin codes in remote areas.
• Find the origin of a problem — e.g., flag accident-prone freeways/roads, discover areas with high customer drop-offs, study ride cancellation reasons in different areas.
• Analyse usage patterns — e.g., determine which of the areas are using which of your on-demand services (grocery delivery, food delivery, package delivery) the most.
• Keep track of the market changes/fluctuations — e.g., verify if the drop in footfalls/orders is due to the rise of competitors in certain areas, analyze if a store is located in the wrong community.

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