Time to capitalise on the ‘where factor’

Location influences most, if not all, business behaviour – yet a lack of location awareness is an analytical blind spot for many organisations.

Traditional business intelligence systems have looked at the who, what and why, but have ignored the core analytical dimension of where.

When we think of location-centric IT, we typically think of GIS. But increasing use of mobile devices, GPS and RFID have made it easier to identify the location of people and things.

The popularity of consumer mapping applications such as Google Maps has also created consumer demand for the ability to manipulate spatial data to answer routine queries.

The public sector is perhaps the most advanced in its adoption of location-aware technologies, driven by challenges such as shifting population patterns, immigration, CO2 targets, increasing requests for planning permission and security threats. Local authorities deploy location-based systems to improve planning in disaster forecasting, pandemics and emergency preparedness, carbon footprint management and enhancing citizen self-service.

The private sector is catching up. By giving frontline staff location-aware technology, companies can accelerate business efficiency and performance, particularly in customer-centric processes. For example, a location-aware system integrated with an existing customer database enables an organisation to identify its most valuable customers, better assess risk, see how demographics correlate with objectives or revenue goals and target new customers with similar characteristics.

Incorporating location-based data with CRM systems can create a particularly powerful application. Location-aware CRM solutions enable organisations to access spatial information, cleanse and validate the underlying data, integrate and enrich it with internal systems and processes, analyse and visualise it as needed, and communicate the results internally and with specific customers or citizens. This gives organisations the ability to locate, connect and communicate from a location-aware data platform.

As the market matures, we will see demand for geospatial “what if” scenario modelling increasing. By extending CRM systems at the front end and adding the “where factor” of geography, postcodes and location intelligence, organisations can unlock their data assets and produce deeper insights that improve competitiveness and performance. If you haven’t considered the “where factor”, you are leaving a serious amount of data intelligence unexploited.

Mark Bishop is marketing manager at Pitney Bowes Business Insight