For real estate managers at large retail chains the expiration of a store lease triggers a complex evaluation of the store. How is that store performing relative to other locations? Are there competitors close by? Have the demographics of the neighborhood changed significantly since the store opened? Does the merchandise of the store fit the clientele? How many potential customers live within a five minute drive of the store? To answer these questions they need data from many different sources (census data, sales data, geographic data, etc.), but even more importantly they need a tool that helps them stitch together the data and visualize it in a way that makes it intuitive work to with and actionable.

In this video we take a look at how the folks at Accruent are tackling this problem by overlaying WPF 3D visualizations on maps provided by Windows Live’s Virtual Earth Services. We also look at how their tool manages the evaluation process using Microsoft Office Sharepoint Services and Windows Workflow Foundation and integrates with Outlook and the other Office 2007 applications to provide a seamless experience.