Today, organizations collect large volumes of data relevant to their business operations, management, production, finance, marketing, competition, customers, suppliers, markets and many more domains. The trend of data collection and analytics is on the rise in the era of digital solutions and automated data collection devices and mechanisms.
With the help of the latest developments in spatial technology, it is now technically feasible to harness the power of spatial information (also known as geospatial, geographic or location-based information or location data) present in business analytics. Certain analysis demands the integration of demographic and geographic details with business data to achieve the desired information. Geo-BI or Spatial BI is an integrated solution that harnesses the power of geospatial and business intelligence technologies.
In this article, we discuss the various business scenarios in which spatial integration can add business value to information systems, the current state of Geo-BI integration, its challenges and the way forward.
How can Geo-BI integration add business value to information systems?
Businesses typically seek the following benefits from a BI solution:
- Making it easier to handle and analyze the vast amounts of data from multiple sources, and update it regularly
- Enabling faster analysis and decisions and execute timely, corrective and preventive measures
- Understanding customer behavior and enable the relevant segmentation of their current and future customer base
- Selectively measuring the key performance indicators (KPIs) for their different departments and positions
Spatial technology is expected to enhance the BI objectives. Most large business operations are spread out geographically. Geo-BI presents an integrated view of this information in a map and the BI dashboard. Spatial technology enables a thematic analysis around various parameters for each geographical region. This helps you analyze information faster and arrive at better decisions. Customers are also spread out geographically. Understanding customer behavior becomes more intuitive and meaningful if integrated with regional, demographic and socio-economic information, and with competitive presence in an area.
Typical customer engagement scenarios that benefit from spatial information include the following:
- The application of spatial predictive analysis using customers’ past buying and spending patterns, service performance and satisfaction, and other behavior patterns can determine their propensity to buy a particular product or brand.
- Spatial analysis helps you retain and grow your customer base.
- For an organization offering multiple products, spatial analysis helps identify and increase cross-sales opportunities, thus leading to higher profitability per customer.
Challenges in Geo-BI Adoption and the Role of Regulatory Standards:
Given the pace at which consumer location-based services are rolling out, being adopted and integrating multiple datasets, one has to ask why enterprise Geo-BI adoption is slow in comparison. The answer lies with the BI and GIS communities; they are currently inhibiting effective and accelerated Geo-BI integration. Breaking through these vendor constraints often requires a third-party system integrator and standards. The OGC’s current initiative on Geo-BI standards and interoperability is helping technology vendors establish a common set of standards required for the flexible integration of these two technologies. This will also help you plan standards-based implementations to achieve a higher degree of interoperability, thus avoiding technological limitations. It is important that the key BI and GIS technology vendors, system integrators and end-user organizations participate and contribute toward achieving this goal.
The use of open standards will help remove the technological barriers in terms of selecting specific platform and reap the real benefits of the technology for society.
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The post Hello GIS, Meet Business Analytics: Geo-BI Benefits, Challenges and the Way Forward appeared first on TCS Insights.
