The next contractor yard, chosen in a morning

Jacob leads expansion at one of Canada’s biggest building supplies companies, in Toronto. He decides where the next contractor yard opens. Every lot on his shortlist gets a consultant’s study. It takes six weeks and costs more than a truck. By the time it lands, the best lot is often sold. And twice, a new yard opened far from the contractors it was meant for. With xMap Flows, Jacob built Atlas. On the first Monday of each month, Atlas takes the lots on the shortlist, draws what each one reaches in fifteen minutes by car, finds the builders, roofers and electricians inside, counts the people living there, ranks the lots, and sends the board a short report. On Monday, Atlas compares nine lots before lunch. The winner, in Vaughan, has eleven hundred contractors within fifteen minutes and a quarter of a million people. Jacob’s offer goes in that afternoon. Jacob used to wait six weeks for an answer. Now the answer waits for him.

The story in words