Non-postal Uses and Economic Aspects
While postal codes were introduced to expedite the delivery of mail, they are very useful tools for several other purposes, particularly in countries where codes are very fine-grained and identify just a few addresses. Among uses are:
- Finding the nearest branch of an organisation to a given address. A computer program uses the postal codes of the target address and the branches to list the closest branches in order of distance as the crow flies (or, if used in conjunction with streetmap software, road distance). This can be used by companies to inform potential customers where to go, by job centres to find jobs for job-seekers, to alert people of town planning applications in their area, and a great many other applications.
- Fine-grained postal codes can be used with satellite navigation systems to navigate to an address by street number and postcode.
- Geographical sales territories for representatives in the pharmaceutical industry are allocated based on a workload index that is based upon postcode.
Read more about this topic: Postal Code
Famous quotes containing the words economic and/or aspects:
“Society’s double behavioral standard for women and for men is, in fact, a more effective deterrent than economic discrimination because it is more insidious, less tangible. Economic disadvantages involve ascertainable amounts, but the very nature of societal value judgments makes them harder to define, their effects harder to relate.”
—Anne Tucker (b. 1945)
“It is always a sign of an unproductive time when it concerns itself with petty and technical aspects [in philology], and likewise it is a sign of an unproductive person to pursue such trifles.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)