Esri GIS Helps Retailer Ascena Define Distinct Brands

Redlands, California - May 21, 2012 - Ascena Retail Group, Inc., is a leading specialty retailer of apparel for both women and tween girls in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. Ascena's dressbarn, maurices, and Justice brands are focused on meeting the needs and preferences of three distinct audiences. To continue tailoring fashion offerings for its growing customer base, strengthen its brands, and more effectively determine the success of retail sites, Ascena is integrating Esri GIS analysis tools, demographic data, and map visualization into its business processes. Esri technology helps Ascena follow a customer centric approach for store development and market planning. It also helps the company identify key demographics and store profiles for each location to stratify and segment the brands. Ascena Retail Group uses GIS to quickly assess the suitability of sites and market potential, streamlining the development process and reducing the cost and time to bring projects to completion.

"Working with Esri is helping our company maintain its distinct market presence across brands and reinforce the specialty store experience throughout its 2,500 locations," says Kevin Ryks, director of financial planning, Maurices Incorporated. "We have found that each brand can be successful in very different and unique types of markets."

Esri spatial analysis helps Ascena quickly assess the suitability of potential store locations and their market potential by viewing possible sites and information about them, such as square footage, what is around them, and the socioeconomic makeup of the community. This analysis is a key element of the ongoing development, evolution, and growth of the brands and store footprint.

"Ascena Retail Group's character and success expresses the same values its founder, Roslyn Jaffe, and her husband defined in the 1960s—a reputation for quality, style, value, and customer service," says Simon Thompson, global director of commercial industry, Esri. "In a world where society and its priorities continually change, GIS is a powerful tool to help Ascena respond to these evolutionary trends."

For more information on Esri and how its GIS technology and data can help retailers, visit esri.com/retail.

About Esri

Since 1969, Esri has been giving customers around the world the power to think and plan geographically. The market leader in GIS technology, 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 esri.com/news

North Carolina to Offer Esri GIS to All K–12 Schools in State

With the signing of a statewide license for unlimited classroom use of Esri's ArcGIS software, K–12 schools in North Carolina have initiated a comprehensive program to introduce geospatial technology to their students. The license will be administered by Dr. Reed Perkins, chair, Division of Math and Natural Sciences, Queens University of Charlotte, who is a longtime advocate for GIS education in the secondary school system.

"The statewide license is an opportunity to open K–12 students' eyes to the power and wonder of GIS," says Perkins. "Taught in the right way, GIS is a self-priming pump. A little exposure to GIS gets people wanting to know even more. The fact that the license covers the entire state will have an enormous impact because, like many states, there are parts of North Carolina without the resources to support a full site license. This gives every district, school, and formal youth club the opportunity to share twenty-first-century geospatial technology and imagination with its students."

In addition to all K–12 schools in the state, North Carolina's license includes after-school programs like 4-H clubs, Scout troops, and Boys & Girls Clubs. Perkins indicates that GIS professionals and educators from around the state will contribute to this initiative by installing software and helping teachers integrate ArcGIS into their lesson plans.

"North Carolina has a long history of GIS in its schools, and some educators have taught ArcGIS for many years," says Charlie Fitzpatrick, Esri K–12 Schools Program manager. "With its statewide license, every K–12 student in any class or club in the state can use GIS in school or online, building for college and career."

Queens University of Charlotte is a private, co-ed, Presbyterian-affiliated comprehensive university with a commitment to both liberal arts and professional studies. Located in the heart of historic Charlotte, Queens serves approximately 2,700 undergraduate and graduate students through its College of Arts and Sciences, the McColl School of Business, the Wayland H. Cato, Jr. School of Education, the James L. Knight School of Communication, Hayworth College for Adult Studies and the Andrew Blair College of Health which features the Presbyterian School of Nursing.

Mapping the Nation Illustrates Broad Government Use of Esri GIS

Esri has released the second in the Mapping the Nation series, Mapping the Nation: Government and Technology Making a Difference. Including more than 100 full-color maps produced by 40 government agencies, it clearly illustrates how GIS technology can be used to evaluate and respond to social, economic, and environmental concerns at local, regional, national, and global levels.
"Geography is a common denominator in everything the federal government supports," says Christopher Thomas, director, government markets—federal, state, local at Esri. "The maps in this book attest to the limitless power of geography and GIS technology and show how government agencies rely on GIS analysis to facilitate initiatives, improve transparency, and deliver strong business models."
Mapping the Nation: Government and Technology Making a Difference (ISBN: 978-1-58948-315-6, 128 pages, US$19.95) is available at online retailers worldwide, at esri.com/esripress, or by calling 1-800-447-9778. Outside the United States, visit esri.com/esripressorders for complete ordering options, or visit esri.com/distributors to contact your local Esri distributor. Interested retailers can contact Esri Press book distributor Ingram Publisher Services.
About Esri Press
Esri Press publishes books on GIS, cartography, and related topics. The complete selection of GIS titles from Esri Press can be found on the web at esri.com/esripress.
About Esri
Since 1969, Esri has been giving customers around the world the power to think and plan geographically. The market leader in geographic information system (GIS) technology, 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 esri.com/news.
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