ustomers can be very difficult or quite easy depending on the country you are in, the industry you are dealing with, and how much money you are willing to spend. Numerous firms are in the business of gathering and selling information about companies. The information may be as easy to acquire as the local Yellow Pages, or might require spending several hundred dollars per company for detailed investors' analyses. Themain alternative is for your customer service or sales organizations to collect the information directly from the customers. Either way, the decision to attain this data must include balancing the cost of the material versus the benefit of including it in the analysis. Most Common Business Demographic Segments There are a wide variety of demographics that can be used to describe companies. Some of the more commonly accepted and used characteristics include the following. Purely descriptive characteristics: Industry - Different industries have different tele- communications profiles Number of employees - The more employees, the more phone needs Number of Locations - The more locations, the more need to call between them Location - The physical place they are located Financially related characteristics: Company's current spending with own firm Company's overall telecommunications budget Company's overall revenue for the year Company's growth rate Company's sales expense Chapter 11 WHAT Do You Do WITH ALL THIS SEGMENTATION? Our review of the various approaches to segmentation and some of the issues that arise when trying to figure out how to develop segmentation are only a small sampling of the subject. It is any wonder then that segmentation provides us with SO much potential value and SO much confusion at the same time? Segmentation Summary In this chapter we have established what the major types of segmentation schemes are and the primary issues surrounding their construction. Major Types of Segmentation The principle types of segmentation include: Geographic (organizing customers by their physical loc