Patent ID: 8332259

Claim:
A method for evaluating expansion of a business where the business is located in a first geographic area, comprising: receiving information about the business from a system inquiry template, wherein the information about the business comprises location information, demographic information, and a business type; querying, using a computer processor, a business information source and a demographic information source using the information; receiving, using the computer processor, data from the business information source and the demographic information source in response to the querying, wherein the data comprises economic information related to a plurality of geographic areas; processing, using the computer processor, the data using a business expansion factor to generate processed data, wherein processing the data using the business expansion factor comprises: comparing a value for the business expansion factor for the first geographic area to a value for the business expansion factor for one of the plurality of geographic areas; obtaining, based on the comparing, a plurality of potential geographic areas for expanding the business, wherein the processed data comprises the plurality of potential geographic areas for expanding the business, and wherein the plurality of potential geographic areas are evaluated on the business expansion factor to determine a similarity to the first geographic area to obtain a rank order, wherein the rank order is determined by a weighted-average of the business expansion factor; generating, using the processed data, a map displaying the plurality of potential geographic areas using a scale proportionate to the rank order of the plurality of potential geographic areas; and presenting the map on a visual display.