Knight Frank steers UK retailers towards profitable expansion

The world’s leading independent real-estate consultancy is using Esri’s ArcGIS platform to help retailers find the most advantageous sites for new stores across the UK.  The firm gives its clients greater confidence in their business plans and enables them to expand their retail operations more quickly.

Working with some of the most well-known brands in the retail industry, Knight Frank uses ArcGIS to narrow the search for property down to only those locations that are likely to deliver the greatest profitability.  It analyses a wealth of data ranging from the positions of competitors and complementary businesses, to the demographics of nearby residents and traffic flows.  This powerful insight, when combined with the retailer’s own business data, enables Knight Frank to employ a structured, intelligence-led approach to identifying locations for new stores. 

Knight Frank then helps its clients to make more well-informed decisions about strategic new retail ventures, often involving multi-million pound investments.  By creating interactive maps in ArcGIS Online, senior retail executives can easily visualise alternative locations.  They can compare data about potential new stores with data about existing stores, in areas with a similar profile, thereby gaining greater confidence in their plans.

Crucially, Knight Frank is able to carry out almost all of its location analysis using ArcGIS, third-party intelligence and publically available data sets, before sending surveyors out into the field.  This not only results in significant cost efficiencies, but also speeds up the location search process, allowing clients to secure the most advantageous sites ahead of their competition and reduce their time to market.

“The use of ArcGIS in the commercial property sector unlocks the potential for growth and opens the door to future development.”

James Nolan, Senior Geospatial Analyst, Commercial Research Department, Knight Frank

Read more about how other organisations are harnessing the power of GIS to enable business change, in the latest issue of ThinkGIS