New data platform follows award-winning “Where to Settle” campaign and helps Polish and Ukrainian businesses thrive together.
*Articol susținut de Mastercard
Mastercard’s new data tool is helping entrepreneurs pinpoint the ideal spots the open their new businesses in Poland. The “Where to Start” platform is part of the brand’s new “Room for Everyone” campaign. It matches Polish and Ukrainian businesses and shows them how they can thrive in each other’s company through the concept of “complementary business.”
“Where to Start” pulls together Mastercard’s anonymized spending insights with additional partner-provided data such as street traffic, noise level and more. Entrepreneurs can use that data to determine the best places to open their particular businesses. One of the key insights “Where to Start” offers is that of complementary businesses—those that prosper better when they are neighbors. For example, “power couples” such as a bakery and a barber, a bookstore and a jeweller or a pet store and a drugstore can all expect to see more footfall if they are in each other’s vicinity.
The “Room for Everyone” initiative and the “Where to Start” tool are the follow-up to Mastercard’s Cannes Lions SDG Grand Prix and Titanium-awarded “Where to Settle” platform. That campaign helped Ukrainian refugees in Poland find the best areas to plant new roots, guiding them to less-populated towns that could benefit from what they had to offer.
In Poland, the numbers of small and medium-sized business entrepreneurs are growing steadily, and in 2022 the country welcomed more than 310,000 new companies. This year, 1,000 new businesses have opened daily—1 in 10 of which are started by Ukrainians.
“Where to Start” is free of cost and provides access to information that was previously available only to large companies. In August, “Where To Start” will be rolled out to the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
“Choosing the right location or matching it to a chosen industry is a key success factor for many businesses,” said Marta Życińska, general manager Poland, Mastercard Europe. “By providing ‘Room For Everyone’ to future and current entrepreneurs, we want to help them build their businesses from the start and more, help them thrive together. This is a unique tool in Poland to support entrepreneurs from small and medium-sized businesses, free of charge. It was created to leverage our resources in the best possible way— it is an example of the responsible use of data analysis in the service of society and for the development of entrepreneurship.”
“Room for Everyone” continues Mastercard’s commitment to “data for good” and is the next step in helping refugees not only find a place to live but to thrive in Poland.
How The Tool Works
“Where to Start” requires no prior registration and is available on mobile and desktop. The tool presents results and insights from advanced data analysis based on various sources. It shows not only the business potential of a given location, but also the characteristics of its surroundings, including public transportation information, green areas, or number of educational institutions, among other data. Orange Polska provides ready-made statistics, based on anonymized mobile network data, which are an invaluable source of knowledge on urban traffic. Thus, in one place you can find a whole range of information that can help you make decisions related to your business.
“Where to Start” also gives users access to the aforementioned information about complementary businesses that thrive when in the same neighbourhood.
Results and information are available for the 37 largest cities in Poland. Thanks to cooperation with the Morizon-Gratka Group, users of the tool will also receive direct access to current offers for the purchase or rental of commercial premises, tailored to their needs and budget limits.
“Where to Start” uses consumer spending data, which is aggregated and anonymized according to Mastercard's secure data processing rules.
To access the tool, visit WheretoStart.com
About Mastercard
Mastercard is a global technology company in the payments industry. Our mission is to connect and power an inclusive, digital economy that benefits everyone, everywhere by making transactions safe, simple, smart and accessible. Using secure data and networks, partnerships and passion, our innovations and solutions help individuals, financial institutions, governments and businesses realize their greatest potential. Our decency quotient, or DQ, drives our culture and everything we do inside and outside of our company. With connections across more than 210 countries and territories, we are building a sustainable world that unlocks priceless possibilities for all. Follow us on Twitter @MastercardEU and @MastercardNews, read more about our global impact in Perspectives, and subscribe for the latest news from the Mastercard Newsroom.
