Some common statements that we have heard more than once are:
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“We don’t need to use location analysis, our reports are mainly financial.”
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“Using a GIS with our business data is complicated and too expensive.”
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“We have XYZ in our company, it is all that we need. We don’t need maps or work with locations.” (Fill in name of software suite end-all, do-all).
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“We use only one software suite – it’s what we use to do all of our business processes. We don’t have time to use geospatial analytics.”
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“Our company is too small for GIS.”
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“Our CIO is responsible for our data, ask him if we use location analytics.”
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“Who needs a GIS? We have spreadsheets to do that!”
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“The company we use to do that type of work gives us a report. They won’t give us the data unless we pay more money. If we get maps, they charge extra for that, too.”
Yes, it takes a bit of discussion to show people the power of GIS, but once they see it, they often cannot get enough – and this has been proven over and over again.
Mainly, it’s a matter of getting that first vision of what GIS can do.
Yet, today, the “geospatial perspective” is as ubiquitous in most anything we do as using email.
If you use a computer or a mobile device, to do your work and to manage your life, you may not realize just how much location is integrated into the data that you use every day. Think about it.
Let’s take using social media, taking photos or videos, or going shopping, or eating out – or trying to figure out how to get somewhere in your town, especially if there is road construction where a new road closure happens every weekend or every night. Think about some “dependencies” that have crept into your daily life, that when you think about it, location is a critical part of these tools (apps) that you use.
You may be reminded by your computer or mobile device that “location services are turned off” – and it may stop you in your tracks, until you turn these back on in your settings.
Let me know if I’m informing the already initiated!
Do you do business or have organizational responsibilities in more than once place? Using location analytics could help you do better in all of your areas of operation.
Do you use performance metrics? Add the location perspective to that and you would be amazed to see what you have not noticed before.
Do you have the need to manage getting the right people to the right place at the right time to do the work with the right tools? How do you set a baseline for that without some location analysis? Spreadsheets? That’s pretty “old school” – there is a way to work smarter.
Why don’t you call us or send us a note to get a conversation started about what we can do to help you think about improving your “location intelligence quotient” – you just might be missing some opportunities that you did not see without looking at the “what” relative to the “where” of your organization’s operations.
