By Marc Verschuren:
Geomarketing is a combination of GIS and marketing, and can be defined as ‘a tool based on GIS that broadens and strengthens marketing activities and supporting management by doing analysis based on the combination of geographical data with company’s internal and -external data’. Within this research, an intensive literature study is done about Geomarketing which presents what it exactly is, what is needed for it and how it is being used. From out this literature and my experience in the field of Geomarketing, a maturity model and a questionnaire are developed as a tool to asses the degree of maturity of Geomarketing in thirty well-known Dutch retail companies. The maturity of Geomarketing of these companies can be described as quite mature and developed, but not as managed or embedded. The maturity shows an average of 2 on a scale of 1 to 4. Half of the companies are facing bottlenecks which are mainly organizational related. Geomarketing has according to the model many potential to grow further. Integrating Geomarketing better into the management increases the overall Geomarketing maturity. No great significant differences are observed in maturity between the sectors and its companies. The companies also show a maturity equally as described in the international literature. The Geomarketing Maturity Model needs a slight revision.