At Bee Media, we often have requests from the sales division for maps of local sales territories. Sales managers and sales reps use maps to visualise their territories, plan trips with multiple stops/calls, and know where their boundary ends and their colleague’s begins.

While updating maps using MapInfo results in a nice, hard copy product, it is often outdated very quickly.

Experience has shown that we have historically spent a significant amount of time reproducing updated versions of maps whenever territories or reps change.

To improve this process, our cartographer, Mark Benson, came up with a more efficient solution, enabling us to steer away from the time-intensive street directory maps and, instead, use the free download of Google Earth (GE).

By importing the local sales reps territory boundary file into Google Earth, a rep just needs to go here and select the download Google Earth blue button.

Next, they go to file > open and select the download .kmz attachment sent to them via e-mail. Then, they just right click on the layer and click “save to my places.”

Improved benefits include:

• Users are able to locate an existing or new client on GE and see if it falls within their territory.
  
  
• Many contain links within a location to Web pages for additional information, which helps with planning and preparing.
  
  
• Road and street labels are visible if desired.
  
  
• While there are other ways of finding directions, the option exists in GE.
  
  
• Users can screenshot to produce a paper map if needed.
  
  
• There is a huge time savings in production and maintenance.

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