Location intelligence

Last updated

In business intelligence, location intelligence (LI), or spatial intelligence, is the process of deriving meaningful insight from geospatial data relationships to solve a particular problem. [1] It involves layering multiple data sets spatially and/or chronologically, for easy reference on a map, and its applications span industries, categories and organizations.

Contents

Maps have been used to represent information throughout the ages, but what might be referenced as the first example of true location 'intelligence' was in London in 1854 when John Snow was able to debunk theories about the spread of cholera by overlaying a map of the area with the location of water pumps and was able to narrow the source to a single water pump. This layering of information over a map was able to identify relationships between different sets of geospatial data.

Location or geographical information system (GIS) tools enable spatial experts to collect, store, analyze and visualize data. Location intelligence experts can use a variety of spatial and business analytical tools to measure optimal locations for operating a business or providing a service. Location intelligence experts begin with defining the business ecosystem which has many interconnected economic influences. Such economic influences include but are not limited to culture, lifestyle, labor, healthcare, cost of living, crime, economic climate and education.

Further definitions

The term "location intelligence" is often used to describe the people, data and technology employed to geographically "map" information. These mapping applications like Polaris Intelligence can transform large amounts of data linked to location (e.g. POIs, demographics, geofences) into color-coded visual representations (heat maps and thematic maps of variables of interest) that make it easy to see trends and generate meaningful intelligence. [2] The creation of location intelligence is directed by domain knowledge, formal frameworks, and a focus on decision support. Location cuts across through everything i.e. devices, platforms, software and apps, and is one of the most important ingredients of understanding context in sync with social data, mobile data, user data, sensor data.

Location intelligence is also used to describe the integration of a geographical component into business intelligence processes and tools, often incorporating spatial database and spatial OLAP tools.

In 2012, Wayne Gearey from the real estate industry (JLL) offered the first applied course on location intelligence at the University of Texas at Dallas in which he defined location intelligence as the process for selecting the optimal location that will support workplace success and address a variety of business and financial objectives. [3] [4]

Pitney Bowes MapInfo Corporation describes location intelligence as follows: "Spatial information, commonly known as "Location", relates to involving, or having the nature of where. Spatial is not constrained to a geographic location however most common business uses of spatial information deal with how spatial information is tied to a location on the earth. Miriam-Webster® defines Intelligence as "The ability to learn or understand, or the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one`s environment." Combining these terms alludes to how you achieve an understanding of the spatial aspect of information and apply it to achieve a significant competitive advantage." [5]

Definition by Esri is as follows: "Location intelligence is achieved via visualization and analysis of data. By adding layers of geographic data—such as demographics, traffic, and weather—to a smart map or dashboard, organizations can use intelligence tools to identify where an event has taken place, understand why it is happening, and gain insight into what caused it." [6]

Definition by Yankee Group within their White Paper "Location Intelligence in Retail Banking: "...a business management term that refers to spatial data visualization, contextualization and analytical capabilities applied to solve a business problem." [7]

Commercial applications

Location intelligence is used by a broad range of industries to improve overall business results. Applications include:

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geographic information system</span> System to capture, manage, and present geographic data

A geographic information system (GIS) consists of integrated computer hardware and software that store, manage, analyze, edit, output, and visualize geographic data. Much of this often happens within a spatial database; however, this is not essential to meet the definition of a GIS. In a broader sense, one may consider such a system also to include human users and support staff, procedures and workflows, the body of knowledge of relevant concepts and methods, and institutional organizations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Esri</span> Geospatial software & SaaS company

Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc., doing business as Esri, is an American multinational geographic information system (GIS) software company headquartered in Redlands, California. It is best known for its ArcGIS products. With a 40% market share in 2011, Esri is one of the world's leading supplier of GIS software, web GIS and geodatabase management applications.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crime mapping</span> Diagram showing crime incident patterns

Crime mapping is used by analysts in law enforcement agencies to map, visualize, and analyze crime incident patterns. It is a key component of crime analysis and the CompStat policing strategy. Mapping crime, using Geographic Information Systems (GIS), allows crime analysts to identify crime hot spots, along with other trends and patterns.

A GIS software program is a computer program to support the use of a geographic information system, providing the ability to create, store, manage, query, analyze, and visualize geographic data, that is, data representing phenomena for which location is important. The GIS software industry encompasses a broad range of commercial and open-source products that provide some or all of these capabilities within various information technology architectures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MapInfo Corporation</span> Defunct technology company

MapInfo Corporation, initially incorporated as Navigational Technologies Incorporated, was a company that developed location intelligence software. It was headquartered in North Greenbush, New York. Its products included a desktop mapping application, various map and demographic data products, and some web-based applications. It acquired several other companies in order to market their software, data, or services directly. It was acquired in 2007 by Pitney Bowes, and became Precisely in December 2019 when acquired by Syncsort.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ArcGIS</span> Geographic information system maintained by Esri

ArcGIS is a family of client, server and online geographic information system (GIS) software developed and maintained by Esri.

Smallworld is the brand name of a portfolio of GIS software provided by GE Digital, a division of General Electric. The software was originally created by the Smallworld company founded in Cambridge, England, in 1989 by Dick Newell and others. Smallworld grew to become the global market leader for GIS in 2010 focused on utilities and communications and remains strong in this sector today. Smallworld was acquired by GE Energy in September 2000.

GIS or Geographic Information Systems has been an important tool in archaeology since the early 1990s. Indeed, archaeologists were early adopters, users, and developers of GIS and GIScience, Geographic Information Science. The combination of GIS and archaeology has been considered a perfect match, since archaeology often involves the study of the spatial dimension of human behavior over time, and all archaeology carries a spatial component.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geomarketing</span> Use of geographic information in marketing activities

In marketing, geomarketing is a discipline that uses geolocation in the process of planning and implementation of marketing activities. It can be used in any aspect of the marketing mix — the product, price, promotion, or place. Market segments can also correlate with location, and this can be useful in targeted marketing.

MapInfo Pro is a desktop geographic information system (GIS) software developed by Precisely, used for mapping and location analysis. It was formerly developed by Pitney Bowes Software and the MapInfo Corporation.

ArcGIS Server is the core server geographic information system (GIS) software made by Esri. ArcGIS Server is used for creating and managing GIS Web services, applications, and data. ArcGIS Server is typically deployed on-premises within the organization’s service-oriented architecture (SOA) or off-premises in a cloud computing environment.

ArcMap is the former main component of Esri's ArcGIS suite of geospatial processing programs. Used primarily to view, edit, create, and analyze geospatial data. ArcMap allows the user to explore data within a data set, symbolize features accordingly, and create maps. This is done through two distinct sections of the program, the table of contents and the data frame. In October 2020, it was announced that there are no plans to release 10.9 in 2021, and that ArcMap would no longer be supported after March 1, 2026. Esri is encouraging their users to transition to ArcGIS Pro.

Distributed GIS refers to GI Systems that do not have all of the system components in the same physical location. This could be the processing, the database, the rendering or the user interface. It represents a special case of distributed computing, with examples of distributed systems including Internet GIS, Web GIS, and Mobile GIS. Distribution of resources provides corporate and enterprise-based models for GIS. Distributed GIS permits a shared services model, including data fusion based on Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) web services. Distributed GIS technology enables modern online mapping systems, Location-based services (LBS), web-based GIS and numerous map-enabled applications. Other applications include transportation, logistics, utilities, farm / agricultural information systems, real-time environmental information systems and the analysis of the movement of people. In terms of data, the concept has been extended to include volunteered geographical information. Distributed processing allows improvements to the performance of spatial analysis through the use of techniques such as parallel processing.

Hexagon Geospatial's GeoMedia Professional is a geographic information system (GIS) management solution for map generation and the analysis of geographic information with smart tools that capture and edit spatial data. GeoMedia is used for: creating geographic data; managing geospatial databases; joining business data, location intelligence and geographic data together; creating hard and soft-copy maps; conduct analysis in 'real-time'; base platform for multiple applications, geographic data validation, publishing geospatial information and analyzing mapped information.

Suitability analysis is the process and procedures used to establish the suitability of a system – that is, the ability of a system to meet the needs of a stakeholder or other user.

Geographic information systems (GIS) play a constantly evolving role in geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) and United States national security. These technologies allow a user to efficiently manage, analyze, and produce geospatial data, to combine GEOINT with other forms of intelligence collection, and to perform highly developed analysis and visual production of geospatial data. Therefore, GIS produces up-to-date and more reliable GEOINT to reduce uncertainty for a decisionmaker. Since GIS programs are Web-enabled, a user can constantly work with a decision maker to solve their GEOINT and national security related problems from anywhere in the world. There are many types of GIS software used in GEOINT and national security, such as Google Earth, ERDAS IMAGINE, GeoNetwork opensource, and Esri ArcGIS.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carto (company)</span> Cloud computing platform

CARTO is a software as a service (SaaS) spatial analysis platform that provides GIS, web mapping, data visualization, spatial analytics, and spatial data science features. The company is positioned as a Location Intelligence platform due to its tools for geospatial data analysis and visualization that do not require advanced GIS or development experience. As a cloud-native platform, CARTO runs natively on cloud data warehouse platforms overcoming any previous limits on data scale for spatial workloads.

Tactician Corporation is a developer and provider of GIS desktop software, SaaS web software, and business intelligence consulting services internationally. The company has its headquarters in Massachusetts, United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GIS United</span> South Korean data company

GIS United is a GIS consulting firm that specializes in the analysis of geo-spatial big data. It is headquartered in Mapo Seogyo, Seoul, South Korea.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Web GIS</span> Technologies employing the World Wide Web to manage spatial data

Web GIS, or Web Geographic Information Systems, are GIS that employ the World Wide Web to facilitate the storage, visualization, analysis, and distribution of spatial information over the Internet. The World Wide Web, or the Web, is an information system that uses the internet to host, share, and distribute documents, images, and other data. Web GIS involves using the World Wide Web to facilitate GIS tasks traditionally done on a desktop computer, as well as enabling the sharing of maps and spatial data. While Web GIS and Internet GIS are sometimes used interchangeably, they are different concepts. Web GIS is a subset of Internet GIS, which is itself a subset of distributed GIS, which itself is a subset of broader Geographic information system. The most common application of Web GIS is Web mapping, so much so that the two terms are often used interchangeably in much the same way as Digital mapping and GIS. However, Web GIS and web mapping are distinct concepts, with web mapping not necessarily requiring a Web GIS.

References

  1. ↑ Data Resources For Real Estate And Business Geography Analysis. Thrall,G.,I.,Ph.D.(2009)/Professor, Department of Geography, College of Liberal Arts And Sciences and Miller Center For Retail, College of Business, University of Florida
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 "What is Location Intelligence? – Polaris" . Retrieved 2022-01-11.
  3. ↑ Avery, Lois (2015-05-20). "Why location intelligence is a 'game changer' for real estate". RealViews. Archived from the original on 2016-10-19.
  4. ↑ W.M. Gearey, N.M.Trodd, A. Fobes. "Utilizing Location Intelligence for the Placement of Corporate Services" (PDF).{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  5. ↑ George Moon (c. 2008). "Location Intelligence – Meeting IT Expectation" (PDF). Pitney Bowes. Retrieved 2015-10-05.
  6. ↑ Esri. "Location Intelligence". location-intelligence. Retrieved 2022-05-04.
  7. ↑ Marcus Torchia (c. 2009). "Location Intelligence in Retail Banking" (PDF). Pitney Bowes. Retrieved 2015-10-05.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.