Feature
Issue No. 35 - June/July 2007
Spatial info evolution
Globally, more and more companies and organisations are realising one simple fact.
Understanding where customers are located can be the difference between success and failure, because there is a heavy reliance on information technology to gain a competitive advantage.
The vast majority of data held by organisations today contains a spatial context. When empowered with the right technology, this offers a superior level of business intelligence.
Emerging applications and a huge increase in the use of spatial technology has driven the rapid development of what is coming to be known as “Location Intelligence”.
Location Intelligence lets businesses gain new visual insights about operations, customer and competitor location and marketing essentials such as demographics. Armed with this knowledge of “where”, decision-makers and business drivers can make precise and informed decisions about operations for greater return.
Take, for instance, a business that considers establishing itself in another city. While data, such as population can serve as a rough gauge of a market’s potential, matching store locations to local demographics to take advantage of the brand’s potential gives meaning to the data.
This can be for strategic considerations such as what services to offer locally, or use of marketing media to drive traffic to the new location.
Now imagine other applications such as comparing locations to that of competitors or evaluating road traffic patterns and logistic routes; spatial technology allows overall planning for operations, extending further than marketing.
The technology provides “intelligence” using existing internal data resources, along with a range of readily available external resources such as the Census, which is presented in a clear and simple manner.
Companies who have used spatial technology successfully include global players such as Orange, MasterCard and IKEA. The be...
