Postal Code - Non-postal Uses and Economic Aspects

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.

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