Site analysis
Any location, judged on demographics, accessibility, competition and risk. The one to reach for when no vertical playbook fits.
What it weighs most
Demographics and demand
30% of the score. The rest is on this page.
01 / The problem
Most site questions never get asked. Not because they do not matter, but because asking meant a request to a GIS team, a two-week wait, and a deck that arrived after the decision was made.
02 / The decisions it serves
Not a report. A decision somebody has to sign.
Each of these is a question your team already asks, and currently answers with a spreadsheet, a phone call and a fortnight.
Is this site viable at all
Demographics, access, competition and risk, in the time it takes to have the conversation.
How do three sites compare
Scored the same way, so the comparison means something.
What would disqualify it
The thing that overrides a good score, found now rather than in diligence.
03 / What it asks you first
It would rather ask than assume.
The answer changes completely depending on these, so it will not guess at them in order to look fast.
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What type of business, or what use are you putting here?
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Any hard requirements the site has to clear?
04 / The method, in the open
Here is exactly what it weighs. Argue with it.
Most tools will not show you this, because most tools do not have it. These are the weights the playbook really uses.
Demographics and demand
Accessibility
Competition
Risk factors
05 / It is willing to say no
It does not hand you numbers. It gives you a verdict.
An assistant that only ever agrees with you is a mirror, not an analyst. This one holds a line, names the thing that kills the deal, and will tell you to walk away from a site you already like.
The thresholds it holds you to
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A 10-minute drive-time trade area, with competitors pulled from five miles.
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Three comparison locations, so the score means something relative rather than in a vacuum.
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Scores band at 8.0 excellent, 6.5 good with minor concerns, 5.0 proceed with caution. Below 5.0 is not recommended without something significant to offset it.
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Zoning compatibility is checked before any of the deep analysis runs, because there is no point scoring a site you cannot use.
06 / Why not just ask an AI
A fluent answer and a defensible one are not the same thing.
Every model will answer a location question now, and most of the answers sound right. Ask twice and you get two of them. Ask where the number came from and the room goes quiet.
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It checks zoning before it scores anything, because there is no value in ranking a site you are not allowed to use.
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It runs the same method every time, so two sites scored a month apart are actually comparable. Ask a general model twice and you get two answers.
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It builds a real drive-time trade area on the road network rather than a circle that ignores the river.
07 / What it runs on, and what you get
The data underneath
Licensed and authoritative, and named in the output, so the number keeps its source when it travels.
- Esri GeoEnrichment
- Census
- Traffic counts
- Your own layers
What you walk out with
A scored assessment against every factor above, on the live map, with the method beside it.
The method it used and the vintage of every number travel with it, so it still holds up when somebody asks you why in six months.
How an answer travels08 / It pairs with
Nobody makes one decision in isolation. Most teams run this alongside two or three of these.
Run Site analysis on something you already decided. See if it agrees with you.
The honest test of a method is whether it reaches the conclusion your best analyst already reached, and tells you plainly when it does not.
Twenty minutes, and you can argue with the weights.