DataAnalytics Archives

AfriGIS Recognised as a Core Contributor to GeoServer

South Africa’s property development market is full of potential but making the right decisions about where and what to build requires more than just identifying available land. At AfriGIS, we help developers make smarter, data-driven decisions by combining geospatial science with powerful tools like Trade Area Analysis. Our approach goes beyond traditional land evaluation, offering a comprehensive understanding of the market landscape everything from rental trends and income levels to transport links, infrastructure, and environmental risks. With demand for multifamily housing on the rise and urban growth shifting rapidly, developers can no longer rely on static reports or surface-level insights. AfriGIS offers real-time, dynamic data that evolves with the market, allowing for informed decision-making throughout the entire development lifecycle from initial land acquisition to ongoing operational strategy. Whether you're developing luxury apartments, student housing, or affordable family homes, we provide the insights needed to align your investment with actual market demand. Our tools offer a clear view of the bigger picture, helping developers assess potential return on investment, forecast demand, reduce risk, and optimise each development’s success. With features like the Neighbourhood Lifestyle Index, developers gain a deep understanding of who will live in their developments their income, preferences, and lifestyle needs enabling more targeted and profitable projects. At AfriGIS, we help you future-proof your property investments by offering a smarter way to see and understand the spaces you build in. Let data guide your decisions and unlock long-term growth.

A Call for Change in South Africa’s Tech and Geospatial Sectors

Driving Smarter Property Development Decisions with Geospatial Insights

Six Ways to Maximise Your Retail Store’s Success with Trade Area Analysis

Six Ways to Maximise Your Retail Store’s Success with Trade Area Analysis AfriGIS (Pretoria, South Africa – 16 July 2025) Why Location Strategy Is Critical in Retail In the fast-paced retail industry, the key to growth lies in choosing the right locations. Retailers must not only consider foot traffic but also the purchasing power of the surrounding population, consumer characteristics, and ever-changing market dynamics. A poor location decision can lead to missed opportunities and underperforming stores. Cost of shop fitting and wasted costs associated with signing long term lease agreements make this even more crucial. This is where Trade Area Analysis comes into play. For any retail business looking to roll out their first (or fifty-first store), Trade Area Analysis empowers them to make smarter, data-driven decisions. By leveraging this process, retailers can strategically position their stores in locations where the surrounding population has strong purchasing power, competitor locations are known, which significantly increasing the likelihood of high sales performance. The question then isn’t whether Trade Area Analysis is worth the expense, but whether your business can afford not to invest in it Here are six reasons why: 1. Optimising Store Placement Trade Area Analysis uses demographic and geographic data to identify locations with high potential for success, based on factors like population density, income, accessibility, target demographic, competitor locations, and other factors, reducing the risk of opening in underperforming areas. 2. Understanding Customer Demographics Every market is different, and consumer preferences vary by location. Trade Area Analysis helps businesses understand the makeup of their customer base, including age, income, lifestyle, and buying habits. By understanding these factors, retailers can tailor their offerings to meet the needs of local customers, ensuring higher engagement and stronger sales. 3. Improving Marketing Strategies With Trade Area Analysis, retailers can define their target audience based on location-specific data. By understanding the customer demographics within their trade area, businesses can create more targeted marketing campaigns that resonate with local consumers, increasing conversion rates and customer loyalty. 4. Forecasting Demand Predict customer demand by analysing movement patterns, seasonal trends, weather information and demographic shifts. This predictive insight allows businesses to optimise their inventory management, ensuring they’re always stocked with what their customers want, when they want it. 5. Enhancing Operational Efficiency By understanding where customers are located and how they behave, retailers can optimise their supply chain, staffing, and operational resources to ensure they meet demand without overextending their resources. Products can therefore be aligned with target demographics. This leads to cost savings and more efficient day-to-day operations. 6. Mitigating Risks Identify potential risks before they become problems. Whether it's recognising an emerging competitor in a particular area or understanding the impact of infrastructural changes like new public transport routes, businesses can take proactive measures to minimise risk and protect their investment. In today’s competitive retail environment, relying on gut feel or outdated sales data is no longer enough. AfriGIS Trade Area Analysis offers a smarter, more effective way to plan and execute retail rollouts, making it a critical tool for businesses aiming to thrive. The opportunity cost of not investing in Trade Area Analysis: For retailers, choosing the right location isn’t just about visibility—it’s about strategically placing stores in areas where the right customers, with the right purchasing power, are. Trade Area Analysis offers a data-driven approach to ensure that businesses make informed decisions, increase sales performance, and optimise their operations for sustainable growth. WHERE are my customers at the moment? WHERE are my competitors? WHERE should I place new outlets? Learn more about our Trade Area Analysis Location Strategy Solution and schedule a free consultation Speak to an expert

Empowerment Through Partnership: AfriGIS and Employment Solutions for People with Disabilities

At AfriGIS, we believe that data has the power to transform the world and that power should be shared. Since 2016, we’ve partnered with Employment Solutions, a Tshwane-based nonprofit that creates work opportunities for persons with disabilities. Together, we’re building more than maps we Are building inclusive, empowered communities. What started with basic packaging and manual tasks has evolved into something extraordinary. Today, individuals at Employment Solutions are trained to interpret satellite imagery and update critical street centreline data for our mapping systems the very data that enables GPS navigation, logistics planning, and route optimisation across Southern Africa. These are real jobs with real impact. Currently, the team is focused on digitising Mozambique’s road network a meticulous, high-value task carried out with precision and pride. Through hands-on training tailored to meet the needs of deaf workers and those with limited formal education, Employment Solutions has built a thriving model of supported employment in the digital economy. The collaboration is more than Corporate Social Responsibility it’s a vision for a future where ability is recognised, respected, and rewarded.

Sharper insights. Smarter decision-making

“We believe water security is set to become a new competitive edge. Supply chains will be judged not just on emissions but on water resilience. Banks will need to understand water adjusted credit risk, insurers will need to underwrite climate sensitive portfolios with location specific water intelligence, and investors will look for real impact and resilience,” says Helen Hulett, Chief Sustainability Officer at AfriGIS. Resolve Water is the platform that enables all of this by design. It brings transparency and actionable insights to businesses, helping them mitigate risk and invest in sustainable water solutions that have long term, measurable impacts on their bottom line. With more than two decades of experience powering location based solutions across the continent, AfriGIS brings the deep technical and contextual expertise needed to launch a solution of this scale and ambition. “This solution builds on the AfriGIS legacy of scaling solutions with trusted insights,” says Rochelle Mountany, Chief Executive Officer at AfriGIS. “With Resolve Water, we’re providing a platform that will not only help businesses understand their water exposure but also allow them to take action that drives resilience, compliance, and long term sustainability.”

Get game-changing customer insights

Unlocking Business Potential with AfriGIS data-driven Insights

The Missed Opportunity of Not Embracing Geospatial Science in Trade Area Analysis

The Missed Opportunity of Not Embracing Geospatial Science in Trade Area Analysis AfriGIS (Pretoria, South Africa – 03 June 2025) In the information-rich age we live in, answers to location-based questions have never been more available — and crucial — to a business’s success. Yet, many of South Africa’s franchises and retailers continue to rely on gut feel or high-level aggregated sales data to guide their decisions on where to open stores and how to optimise their networks. Unfortunately, this approach often leads to lost sales, costly real estate mistakes, and missed opportunities for growth, writes Rochelle Mountany, CEO of AfriGIS. The need for geospatial analysis in trade area decisions is clearer than ever. It’s not just about where your next physical location should be—it’s about understanding how each potential site fits into a broader network of customer behaviours, traffic patterns, and market dynamics. The problem is, many businesses still overlook geospatial science as a key component of their growth and development strategy. By failing to leverage this tool, they’re missing a massive opportunity to optimise their operations and customer experience. Look no further than South Africa’s shifting retail landscape. Dozens of stores across the country have recently closed. These closures often stem from a combination of factors, including safety issues and inconsistent municipal services. Frequent load-shedding, poor road maintenance, and surging crime rates are making certain neighbourhoods unviable for stores that rely on stability and consistent customer flow. In addition to these environmental challenges, strategic missteps such as failing to correctly identify the customer segment a store is intended to serve have also contributed to closures. These misjudgements highlight the critical importance of understanding not just where customers are today, but where they will be in the future, and how their behaviours and preferences are shaped by their surroundings. Why Geospatial Analysis Matters Trade area analysis is more than just about finding a good location for a new store. It applies to any service-based organisation—whether it's a retail chain, a fast food outlet, or a government department. In fact, public services like health clinics face similar challenges to retail networks when it comes to site planning. For instance, the South African government mandates that health clinics be located within a certain travel radius for underserved communities. Yet, often these clinics are located without any real data-backed understanding of future growth patterns, leading to inefficiencies and gaps in service. In retail, this issue manifests when businesses make location decisions based on outdated assumptions or once-off studies. Planning a store or service location based on static data means you're reacting to the current environment, not anticipating the market’s evolution. This is where geospatial science offers real value—through predictive insights that allow businesses to not just react, but anticipate where future opportunities will emerge. The Predictive Power of Geospatial Science At the core of effective trade area analysis is the ability to model, forecast, and predict future trends. Without integrating geospatial data, businesses are essentially guessing about where future growth will occur. In the retail world, this means failing to plan for shifts in demographics, consumer behaviour, or commercial development in areas that may seem underserved today but will see population or income growth in the coming years. Geospatial science goes beyond static location analysis. It takes into account factors like local property trends, housing development, consumer behaviour, and competitor movements to create dynamic, adaptable models. By overlaying these data points on a map, businesses can identify high-potential locations that align with their strategic goals. This predictive ability can make the difference between opening a store in a saturated area or identifying an emerging market that could yield higher returns over time. A Systematic, Live System for Smarter Decision-Making The problem with traditional trade area analysis is that it is often treated as a one-off study—conducted for a few months, analysed, and then shelved for years. In contrast, geospatial science the likes of which is offered by AfriGIS provides a systematic, live approach to location planning. With a geospatial analysis platform, businesses can continuously monitor and recalibrate their network strategies, ensuring that their decisions are always based on up-to-date data. This kind of approach doesn’t just offer efficiency—it’s a game changer for resource allocation. For example, if a flagship store isn't performing as expected, businesses can pivot. By understanding the real-time data through a geospatial lens, companies can reposition resources, potentially converting a flagship store into a mid-tier location and identifying the right place for a true flagship site. By making geospatial analysis a part of your ongoing strategy, businesses can make constant course corrections, rather than waiting five years to realise their initial assumptions were flawed. This proactive, data-driven approach helps ensure that your capital expenditures are allocated where they’ll yield the best results. The Cost of Missing the Geospatial Edge When it comes to large-scale expansions—whether it’s opening hundreds or thousands of new stores—geospatial science is no longer optional. It's an essential tool for ensuring that businesses make the right location decisions. Without accurate, predictive modelling, the investment required to roll out new stores or facilities becomes a huge gamble. A business that attempts to plan for such growth with spreadsheets or basic market research is setting itself up for failure. Geospatial science offers a level of insight and precision that cannot be achieved through traditional methods. It incorporates real-time data, predictive models, and customer behaviour patterns to provide a comprehensive, dynamic view of the market landscape. This is a massive competitive advantage, especially in sectors like retail and services, where location is everything. A More Efficient, Cost-Effective Way Forward While implementing geospatial analysis may initially seem like a costly or complex undertaking, the truth is that it offers an incredibly cost-effective solution in the long run. At AfriGIS, we’ve designed geospatial platforms that allow businesses to tap into rich, updated datasets without needing to invest in specialised in-house teams of geospatial scientists. By sourcing, cleaning, and spatially enabling datasets, we give businesses the tools they need to make smarter, data-driven decisions without the need for ongoing, expensive consultancy studies. What’s more, this data is continuously updated, ensuring businesses always have the latest insights at their fingertips. With a platform that integrates both current data and predictive models, businesses can confidently plan for future growth and adapt to changing market conditions without the need for costly, periodic studies. In an age where location-based decisions are critical to growth, businesses that fail to adopt geospatial science are leaving money on the table. Whether you’re planning the next retail store, healthcare facility, or public service delivery point, ignoring geospatial analysis is a huge missed opportunity. The ability to predict, analyse, and continually adapt your strategy based on dynamic geospatial data isn’t just a nice-to-have—it’s a competitive necessity. By adopting a live, ongoing system for trade area analysis, businesses can make informed, future-proof decisions that drive growth, optimise resources, and reduce costly real estate mistakes. For companies looking to stay ahead of the curve, the time to integrate geospatial science into your planning is now.

AfriGIS quality data support optimal distribution of Caxton newspapers weekly

AfriGIS Launches Resolve Water

AfriGIS Announces Partnership with iPulse Labs to Strengthen Market Growth Strategy

We are proud to announce a strategic partnership with iPulse Labs, a leading cloud-based biometrics solutions provider. This collaboration aligns with our growth strategy, combining AfriGIS’ validated data with iPulse’s biometrics-as-a-service platform to enhance our collective market offerings. The partnership enables both companies to extend their reach and offer enhanced services, with AfriGIS gaining access to smaller markets previously beyond our scope. "Our shared history has allowed us to build a foundation of integrity and transparency," says Gary Chalmers, CEO of iPulse Labs. "This trust is invaluable in any partnership and allows us to tackle new challenges together." AfriGIS CEO Rochelle Mountany echoes this sentiment: "For us, partnerships are key to growth. By working with iPulse, we can offer new, scalable solutions that benefit businesses of all sizes."

Transforming Data into Actionable Insights for Banking and Financial Services

At AfriGIS, we specialise in transforming geospatial data into intelligent insights that drive growth and compliance in the banking and financial sector. Our solutions support Know Your Customer (KYC) compliance, address validation, risk assessment, and strategic market expansion—helping financial institutions optimise operations while ensuring regulatory compliance. By leveraging authoritative data sources and cutting-edge technology, we provide banks with real-time address verification, climate-based risk analysis, and market insights that inform better lending, insurance, and expansion strategies. Discover how AfriGIS empowers banks to make smarter, data-driven decisions that benefit both businesses and communities.

SAFPS International Fraud Summit

Exploring the Digital Identity Landscape and its unintended consequences.

Corporate Rebels: 55th SAFARI into CREDIT and COMPLIANCE

The objective of the 55th SAFARI is to investigate the regulatory and compliance issues facing Credit Providers in 2024. The better we are informed, the better we are equipped for the challenges that we as accountable institutions may face according to the FICA terms.

Embrace AI but be aware of the data pitfalls for the unwary

While AI has made remarkable progress in recent years and offers numerous benefits across industries, it is essential to be aware of the potential risks associated with its adoption. Unvalidated data sources, manipulated data, copyright infringement, loss of data control, and undifferentiated business outcomes are among the challenges to consider.

Corporate Rebels: 50th SAFARI into CREDIT and COMPLIANCE

The objective of this 50th SAFARI is to look into 2023. The better we are informed, the better we are equipped for the challenges in store for us.