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Intelligence Engine

Intelligence Engine

Her-Zone is a derived-analytics layer, not a directory. We score 1,360 governed analysis zones on chronic-disease burden, healthcare access, and purchasing power, from 44 official sources, each with 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.

1,360

Governed Zones

Pharmacy access scored per zone

44

Official Sources

Integrated into Her-Zone

Why It Matters

Why Zone-Level Matters

Provincial averages tell you almost nothing useful. 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%. The national number averages all of this away.

Disease burden varies by zone. Pharmacy access varies by zone. Population age profiles vary by zone. A product strategy built on provincial averages misses the geography entirely.

Her-Zone makes the geography visible. What you do with it is your decision.

Data Architecture

Three Layers of Intelligence

Her-Zone is structured in three layers. Each layer adds resolution. The foundation is open. The intelligence and commercial layers are where the value compounds.

1

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.

2

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.

3

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. Every integration is traceable. Her-Zone uses 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

Her-Zone's 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. 44 official sources are integrated in total, 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. Where it is declining. Where competition is thin.

Pharmacy Access

Which pharmacies stock your category. Where dispensing gaps exist. How pharmacy 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 1,360 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 because overstating data coverage is worse than understating it.

The foundation layer is released under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International. You can 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 about what your data could be telling you.