Demography for Business Decision Making

Louis G. Pol and Richard K. Thomas. Demography for Business Decision Making. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1997. 288 pp., hardback.

Demography for Business Decision Making is a multifaceted book. It provides an excellent review of the major demographic shifts that are taking place in the United States, an introduction to many of the basic technical tools that are used in demographic analysis, and, most importantly, how the fledgling science of business demography can be instrumental in improving market-based decisions.

The book is organized and reads much like a basic population text, with chapters, for example, on such traditional demographic topics as fertility, mortality, migration, and population composition. But it goes well beyond an introductory population text in that it focuses on the many uses of demographic data in today's highly competitive marketing arena. From the first chapter ("Business Demography: A Decision-Making Discipline") to the last ("Contemporary Business Demography"), the book is filled with examples of how attention to demographic detail can lead to more effective decision making. These include, but are not limited to, the use of demographic knowledge in selecting sites for new businesses, the expansion of existing businesses, the evaluation of environmental factors, and the development of approaches for marketing a wide range of products and services.

Pol and Thomas state in Chapter 1 that "the book is designed to provide an understanding of demographic processes, methods, and data documenting how these demographic...