Intelligence Engine
Intelligence Engine
Her-Zone is a derived-analytics layer, not a directory. We score 1,054 governed analysis zones on chronic-disease burden, healthcare access, and purchasing power, with every input source-attributed and a recorded legal basis. It does not incorporate, derive from, or benchmark against any commercial healthcare panel.
We are not aware of an equivalent zone-intelligence construct, built this way, in the SA pharmaceutical market. The foundation layer is Creative Commons. The analysis is ours.
1,054
Governed Zones
Pharmacy access scored per zone
223,935
H3 Cell Mappings
Underlying every governed zone
Why It Matters
Why Zone-Level Matters
Your national market share is a single number that hides everything that matters.
In one district you hold 28%. In another, 6%. In the urban centres of that second district, 19%. In the rural zones of the first, 3%.
Disease burden, pharmacy access, and population age profiles all vary by zone. A product strategy built on provincial averages misses the geography entirely.
This makes the geography visible. What you do with it is your decision.
Data Architecture
Three Layers of Intelligence
The platform is structured in three layers, each adding resolution. The foundation is open. The intelligence and commercial layers are where the value compounds.
Foundation Layer
Creative Commons BY 4.0
Zone boundaries, census demographics, school locations, municipal finance indicators, water quality scores. Free and open. Built from Stats SA, National Treasury, Department of Basic Education, Department of Water and Sanitation.
Intelligence Layer
Licensed
Disease burden modelling, infection risk indices, healthcare desert scoring, pharmacy access analysis. Built from NICD sentinel surveillance, WHO data, and Herbst Group proprietary models.
Commercial Layer
Client-specific
Your syndicated data integrated with geographic intelligence. Category sizing at zone level. Territory design. Pharmacy network analysis. Call planning grounded in geography, not postcodes.
Evidence Base
Where the Data Comes From
Every source is documented and every integration traceable. We use public authoritative sources for the foundation layer. No data is estimated where it can be measured.
Statistics South Africa
Census demographics, population by age cohort
National Treasury
Municipal finance, economic indicators
National Institute for Communicable Diseases
Sentinel disease surveillance, outbreak data
Department of Basic Education
School locations, quintile data, enrolment
Department of Water and Sanitation
Water quality scores by municipality
South African Police Service
Safety indices by zone
NASA VIIRS
Satellite nightlight economic activity measurement
World Health Organisation
Global health surveillance frameworks
The pharmacy universe is built from the South African Pharmacy Council's statutory public register (Section 22, Pharmacy Act 53 of 1974), geolocated against open-data facility registers. Every source is integrated with a recorded legal basis, drawn from official South African public-sector open data and international health surveillance, documented internally.
Applications
What It Enables
Territory Design
Territory boundaries based on workload, geography, and commercial opportunity. Not postcodes.
Category Analysis
Therapeutic area sizing at zone level: where your category is growing, declining, or facing thin competition.
Pharmacy Access
Which pharmacies stock your category. Where dispensing gaps exist. How access shapes commercial opportunity by zone.
Disease Surveillance
Infection risk scoring. Outbreak susceptibility by zone.
Call Planning
Rep call plans grounded in geographic reality. Drive times, pharmacy density, and workload index inform every route.
Launch Planning
Product launch sequencing by zone. Where to deploy first based on pharmacy access, disease burden, and competition.
Secure AI Pipelines
For some clients, the intelligence layer connects to AI-assisted analysis pipelines built inside the client's own tenant, with hash-and-band preprocessing before any model call and a security-reviewed custom enterprise data processing agreement before go-live. No data leaves the client's environment without their consent.
Governance
Coverage and Transparency
Her-Zone covers all 9 provinces, 52 districts, and 1,054 zones. Demographics cover the full population of 61.4 million.
Pharmacy access derived from the SAPC statutory register and open-data facility registers. This is not the full national register. We are transparent about coverage: overstating it is worse than understating it.
The foundation layer is released under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International. Use it, build on it, redistribute it. Attribution required, commercial use permitted.
We publish what we know. We disclose what we do not.
Want to See Your Category at Zone Level?
Tell us the therapeutic area. We will show you what zone-level analysis reveals. No commitment, just a conversation.