Academic Forum
September 2009
Why aren’t more people using interactive maps to run their businesses a report
This is a question I asked myself when I moved into management consultancy, having previously worked in successful organisations where Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and ‘location intelligence’ were integral parts of the operational and executive routines.
Over the last few weeks I have been looking at the UK GIS marketplace to see whether research could shed any light on this question. I went into the exercise with the following three assumptions shaping my outlook:
- Successful executives thrive on relevant information
- Maps are extremely rich sources of information
- Access to good information should not be obstructed bytechnology or bureaucracy
Our study has been conducted largely through desk-based research. I hope that it will help to inform those interested in interactive mapping and location intelligence, and potentially to encourage those who have not yet considered location intelligence to include it as part of their management toolkit.
What we found was a number of established and highly credible players in the GIS/Location Intelligence arena who have enjoyed success particularly in the public sector. We also discovered some newer players that could have ‘game changing’ potential.
Going back to maps…
I asserted that maps are rich sources of information. For centuries, they have been used to convey essential knowledge – in the early days often to those who could not even read or write. In Location Intelligence terms, the map can outperform its conventional charting cousins.
In the beginning, there was the green and white listing – say no more!
The bar chart is one-dimensional; two dimensions are on offer with the scatter plot.
A ‘bubble’ chart can convey information in three dimensions.
However, not only can a map match this – it can also reveal relationships between dimensions, e.g. crime hotspots in relation to distance from police stations.
Unlike charts and the infamous ‘green and white listings’ (whether on paper or on screen), a map can be interpreted almost literally in the blink of an eye.
The map on the right conveys a host of information including frequency of crimes, density of crime, crimes by category, proximity to location, and so on.
We shall revisit assumptions 1 and 3 later. Meanwhile ask yourself whether you could use location intelligence in your working environment. All of the questions in the figure below lend themselves to depiction on a map, serving as a springboard to taking decisive management action.
The UK GIS marketplace
Our research showed that the UK GIS marketplace comprised a number of players. A deeper dive revealed that not all GIS players are alike, nor are all GIS applications. In an attempt to make our own understanding of the marketplace clearer, we developed a number of ‘pigeon hole’ classifications. (see ref)
As our interest was mainly around organisational location intelligence I focused my attention on the big hitters, bespoke solution providers, and the sector specialists. This was on the basis that the ‘providers/enablers’ were supplying products and capabilities to the other players, and that the ‘Classic GIS’ players were focused more on geographical/topographical phenomena rather than organisation intelligence. This approach is similar to Gartner’s approach in its MarketScope for Geographic Information Systems (which specifically focused on the needs of the Energy and Utilities industry) (ref 1)
The study examined each business under the following headings: products, services, industries, partnerships, profile and corporate strength – using information available in the public domain.
Throughout the study we were looking at what made firms distinctive, unique even. Indeed, in our preliminary work we set up a category ‘USP’ers’ (as in ‘Unique Selling Proposition’). By the end of the study, we changed this category to ‘Game Changers’ – based on the fact that the players in this category demonstrated a noticeably different approach to the market and/or their customers.
Some of the leading major players worth a look
ESRI (UK) – emerge clearly as the big hitter of the big hitters. They have an extensive client base in the UK, with significant market share in local government, energy and utilities. Their product range is comprehensive, and they have invested in facilities such as their Enterprise Lab, used to showcase their capability to clients. With a turnover around £50m they dwarf their rivals in this document. According to their company accounts, approximately 45 per cent (ref 2) of their workforce is involved in sales and commercial activity. ESRI (UK) has been in acquisition mode over recent years, notably with the purchase of GeoWise (and with that the interesting InstantAtlas product).
Dotted Eyes – With a turnover roughly 10 per cent (ref 3) that of ESRI (UK), Dotted Eyes enjoys a high profile – particularly in the public sector. Their product range includes sets of map data to use with some of the most popular GIS products, as well as tools to develop in-house GIS solutions. In addition to their success in securing the NHS Information Centre contract to supply map data to all member organisations, Dotted Eyes have also developed GIS solutions for a number of organisations such as local councils. Dotted Eyes are the leading reseller of Mapinfo products in the UK (see Pitney Bowes Mapinfo)
Cadcorp – is similar in revenue terms to Dotted Eyes, albeit half of that would appear to be on sales outside the UK.(ref4) Cadcorp products are particularly well known for their ability to handle data from different sources without heavy transformation effort. Cadcorp have a strong business partner programme, and this has seen success in a number of sectors such as the Fire Service where they enjoy a dominant position.
Pitney Bowes Mapinfo – We decided to put PB Mapinfo in the provider/enabler category as their products tend to be used by end users and solution providers alike to deliver solutions, rather than PBMI taking on that role directly. This does not detract from the fact that PB Mapinfo is a major player in the broad GIS landscape.
Other interesting companies included RKH, a small advertising house from Leicestershire who have managed to implement web solutions in most of the police constabularies of England and Wales; and Forth Valley GIS who have enjoyed considerable success in the Scottish public sector.
Common characteristics
All of the “big hitter” players mentioned above are capable of producing information-rich maps and overlaying data from a variety of sources. All of the major players can produce heatmaps, superimpose boundaries, and incorporate map markers of various kinds.
Whilst it is difficult to put exact numbers on market sectors, it is clear that the big hitters focus their promotions, case studies and capability on the public sector with relatively little mention of the private sector. It is also interesting to note that many public sector organisations have specialist GIS teams set up to support the collation, cleansing and presentation of geographic information – clearly at some cost to the organisation.
Traditionally, the big hitters have required a product (or set of products) and often relatively expensive map data to be installed within the customer’s infrastructure in order to gain access to the mapping information. This is particularly so where the positional accuracy of maps is of key importance, e.g. for local authority planning applications.
Going back to assumptions 1 and 3 …
‘Successful executives thrive on relevant information’ – whether it is a pivot table in MS Excel, a cube from Cognos, or a report from Salesforce.com; executives are used to zooming in on key information, drilling down and taking action. Given that some, or even all, of the ‘who needs location intelligence’ questions would apply to most organisations then why is it that the uptake of location intelligence – particularly in the commercial sectors – is less prevalent than other information systems?
Is the apparent slowness to adopt Location Intelligence related to point 3: ‘Access to information should not be obstructed?’ Are traditional GIS installations frustrating the delivery of location intelligence? Certainly, the conventional approach calls for GIS experts on the customer side, product installations (sometimes at desktop and server level), relatively expensive support charges and map data licensing – not to mention often intricate data transformation procedures. Particularly in this climate of reduced investment and more aggressive payback criteria, are the perceived efforts to implement GIS getting in the way?
The Game Changers – opening up Location Intelligence to the masses?
Interestingly, during the course of the research we came across a couple of organisations who seem to be challenging the current location intelligence landscape. One is Zubed, based in Milton Keynes and part of Triad plc. Another is SpatialKey who are US based and still in “beta mode” with their products. As this is a UK-centric review, we have only looked in detail at Zubed.
Zubed’s model is based on the simple transfer of customer data on to Zubed’s hosted system, supporting a range of interactive queries and views. It comes complete with the normal mapping visualisation tools, plus some very neat add-ons such as a ‘grabber tool’ which means you can select data from a map with the sweep of a mouse and squirt it into your CRM system, or integrate it with other of your business tools.
One key attraction of the Zubed approach is that it doesn’t require any infrastructure on the client side, unless the client actually wants to host the data. The only software required is a browser, with all of the action happening host-side. This is as close to ‘zero footprint” as it gets. Zubed normally uses Google Maps or Microsoft Virtual Earth, meaning that the costs of mapping data are reduced very significantly – to zero in some cases.
It could be argued that Zubed is one of those ‘disruptive innovators’ that does for location intelligence what YouTube did for content sharing! It will be interesting to assess the landscape over the next 12 months to see whether Zubed catches a wave - and whether the big hitters see fit to follow.
Summary
Potentially, this all means that location intelligence can be delivered very quickly to large numbers of users based anywhere there is a browser. It also opens up access to location intelligence for organisations who haven’t thought it possible in the past, as they don’t need to invest in heavy duty information processing servers or business intelligence platforms. The lack of infrastructure investment makes it attractive in terms of ad hoc use, for example to support campaign management.
The new breed of location intelligence provider seems to offer all of the visualisation techniques associated with the big hitters mentioned above, but with a real focus on delivering location intelligence to the executive desktop.
Concluding Thoughts
So, why aren’t people making more use of interactive maps in their businesses? The evidence shows that there are a number of credible players out there, including some who are making location intelligence highly accessible on a ‘Software as a Service’ basis, and without needing specialist internal staff to support the application. Perhaps it is a case of the providers reaching out to commerce and industry more directly and selling the benefits of maps in business. Perhaps the products have not matured enough yet to interact with other applications such as CRM. Whatever the answer, there are many organisations out there who could be stealing a march on their competitors if they adopted location intelligence techniques – so what are you waiting for?
References:
- Gartner RAS Core Research Note G00164605, 26th January 2009
- ESRI (UK) Directors’ report and financial statements for the year ended 31st Dec 2007
- Dotted Eyes Financial Statements 30th Apr 2008
- Cadcorp Directors’ report and financial statements for the year ended 30th June 2008
About the author
Adrian Leer is a director of Capital X Ltd. Adrian has over 20 years experience across a range of sectors including publishing, manufacturing, FMCG, construction and professional services. He has held board level positions in a number of organisations and specialises in information technology strategies and change management.
