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Issue Date: April 2002

Today's GIS systems provide precise data to executives

April 2002

One of the key mantras in the marketing world is that of ‘location, location, location’, which means that even the best product in the world will not sell if it is in the wrong location. Roger Harris, spatial product manager at Oracle South Africa says that in the past, companies often used ‘gut feel’ to determine ideal locations, not only for products, but also for services and support – anything targeted at customers, whether they were normal consumers or other organisations.

He argues that this imprecise, traditional approach to finding ideal locations has been superseded by recent developments on the geographical information systems (GIS) front, and more specifically in the area of spatial technology, which he believes is capable of yielding very specific visual results that can be as easily understood by business executives as the information produced by standard, PC-based spreadsheets or word processors.
"What makes spatial technology even more interesting for the executive is that it has moved to the mainstream of business and can be integrated into a standard corporate database," he says. "Today's new generation of GIS and spatial applications form an integral part of a company's business intelligence, rather than being separate islands of information, accessible to and understood by only a small group of highly-skilled mathematicians."
Harris says the importance of spatial information is underscored by the fact that the ability to locate something - the 'where' of an item, person, or service - is often the foundation of any company's way of doing business. "Everything that happens in the world happens somewhere, and it is important for companies to have quick, reliable access to this information," he explains. "Companies are finally acknowledging that location is important in business. In fact, location is everything.
"Spatial technology can be applied in any location-based environment, ranging from street sweepers to identify when last a street was swept, to highly complex situations that may involve full trend analysis and a wide variety of other specialised information," he says.
The latter category, location-based applications, such as navigation systems and satellite tracking, where spatial technology is used to indicate when vehicles have gone off set courses. On the other side of the scale, spatial technology can also address the needs of direct marketing organisations that want to target very specific consumers, replacing the old knock and drop approach that flooded a huge area with junk mail.
Visual map
"GIS systems can also create a visual map of where bank customers reside, allowing banks to spatially link account holders to their physical addresses, and see whether they are penetrating the area properly," says Harris. He points out that it is the ability of the new generation of spatial technology applications to provide visual representations of often very complex information in a simple way that will be the key to its success as a standard business intelligence tool.
"A picture is indeed worth a thousand words," he says. "Today's spatial applications present a clear graphic or map of where things happen." Harris advises corporates looking to implement a spatial application to ensure that it can be integrated into a standard database, thereby forming part of a corporates normal, mainstream IT platform. "Do not buy into a proprietary system - an open format is important," he says. "A corporate's most valuable asset is its data, and this needs to be open and not require major translation costs, which could be a company's biggest spatial spend."
The GIS industry's migration from proprietary systems to standards-based, open systems that can be used on corporate desktops also means that corporates no longer require specialist skills and separate database administrators. "GIS and spatial technology were traditionally a black art that required highly specialised skills, but today's applications must also be able to be used by anyone, without requiring a computer science degree or six years of GIS experience," he says. Because the spatial information is available on the standard PC, business executives can start planning immediately, which they have not been able to do in the old days of GIS.
Oracle SA
011 266 4000


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