Location Analytics Becomes Integral Business System at Third-Largest Quick-Service Hamburger Restaurant

Redlands, California—January 22, 2013—Esri announced today that Wendy's, the world's third-largest quick-service hamburger chain, is integrating Esri Business Analyst with the restaurant's corporate IT systems. The web-based business GIS solution will be part of the company's reporting system for new locations, assisting in site selection and market analysis.

"Demographic data and location analytics are critical components when making investment decisions to build new restaurants," said Dennis Hill, vice president, real estate. "With Business Analyst, everything we need—including mapping, analytics, and modeling—can be done on one platform that is scalable across our organization." The Wendy's chain includes more than 6,500 franchise and company-operated restaurants in the United States and 27 countries and US territories worldwide.

Business Analyst replaces a current system in use at Wendy’s. Implementation was completed by Esri business partner GIS, Inc. located in Birmingham, Alabama. The new solution includes server GIS applications, Esri demographics data and customized analytics developed specifically by GIS, Inc. to streamline and enhance Wendy’s site screening and market assessment process. Staff can easily view sales records, customized demographics and other business reports on existing restaurants through an intuitive mapping interface. The system also enables Wendy’s to perform predictive modeling and assess potential restaurant cannibalization for new and existing sites by simply clicking on the map.

"We are pleased to work with Wendy's to incorporate GIS and location analytics into its business processes," said Simon Thompson, director of commercial business at Esri. "The company's decision to integrate GIS as a scalable technology within its existing systems means that any staff member, from marketing to design, can gain the benefits of mapping intelligence without any training and at any time."

For more information on how Esri helps retailers do better business, visit esri.com/retail.

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About Esri
Since 1969, Esri has been giving customers around the world the power to think and plan geographically. The market leader in GIS, Esri software is used in more than 300,000 organizations worldwide including each of the 200 largest cities in the United States, most national governments, more than two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies, and more than 7,000 colleges and universities. Esri applications, running on more than one million desktops and thousands of Web and enterprise servers, provide the backbone for the world's mapping and spatial analysis. Esri is the only vendor that provides complete technical solutions for desktop, mobile, server, and Internet platforms. Visit us at www.esri.com.