Geographical information systems can help firms manage assets
wherever they are. Julia Vowler reports.
Map making is an ancient art. But as no general would dream of
going into battle without decent maps of the terrain, modern-day
corporate warriors increasingly need the support that geographical
information can supply.
The digitisation of maps enables both spatial and textual
information to be combined so that huge amounts of rich information
can be made available to those who have to run companies.
Although geographical information systems (GIS) have been around
for a good decade, they have always been regarded as something
quite separate from normal corporate IT. GIS was deployed on a
special needs basis, by organisations that occupied particular
categories. They already had an established requirement for
extensive mapping, for which GIS was merely a digital replacement
or extension and enhancement of existing physical maps. GIS was the
province of sectors such utilities that had to map cables and
pipelines - most companies didn't need to consider them.
Mobile solutions
That is changing. GIS is becoming more mainstream. Even ordinary
companies can, and should, exploit it. There are several reasons
for this change.
"Any organisation that has assets distributed in space, who
needs to do things like inventory management, can use GIS to help
them add value to how they manage them," says Robin Turner,
director of GIS specialist Intergraph.
"Organisations typically do not manage assets very well because
they don't have good knowledge of them."
In the past, that might not have mattered too much. But with
tighter corporate control, and the swathe of mergers and
acquisitions going through the blue-chip fraternity, the importance
of knowing what you've got and where it's located is ever more
important.
"A good knowledge of your asset base is increasingly critical,"
says Turner.
Secondly, the emergence of mobile business, which technologies
like wireless application protocol (Wap) are accelerating hugely,
is inherently map-related.
Mobile commerce allows the development of location-based
services applicable to a wide range of enterprises. You can find
out where your delivery lorries are to where the missing member of
your project team is. The GIS element just adds the non-spatial
information such as who the consignments are for, what the stock
value is, and so on.
Thirdly, the cost of GIS is plummeting. A few years ago, GIS was
proprietary, which meant not only high costs but lack of
integration with other IT systems. This created stand-alone islands
of geo-spatial data. In the past three or four years, GIS has been
opening up and will run on standard Wintel platforms, housing the
data in standard relational databases like Oracle. Instead of
taking the text information to the specialist spatial information
databases, spatial information can join the existing text
information in standard corporate databases.
"Oracle 7 was only just able to hold geographical information,
but that's come of age in Oracle 8," says Turner. "Now you can move
the GIS islands into the centre."
The Internet is also playing its part in bringing GIS costs
down, in terms of deployment to end-users.
"The managing director can see where all his factories are on
the intranet with a Web browser," says Turner.
And although geographical data is heavy on storage, the cost of
discs is not a consideration. "Disc space is very cheap," says
Turner.
A major consideration is the cost of the geographical data
itself.
Unless a company undertakes the unlikely task of remapping the
UK and digitising the results, digital maps have to be purchased.
This was once extremely expensive. Those organisations, such as
utilities, which simply have GIS, spend millions of pounds to
acquire the underlying geographical data to assist in laying their
cable and pipe networks. Text information is finally added on top
before they had a usable, useful GIS.
This has now changed completely. Ordnance Survey is looking at a
volume, not a value market and has turned its pricing on its head.
This makes it much cheaper for 'ordinary' organisations to acquire
digital maps. They are not alone.
Digital mapping is a hot business and competition is on the side
of the purchasers. The model could work to everyone's benefit, says
Turner. The Japanese equivalent of Ordnance Survey gets millions of
hits a day from mobile phones containing elementary location
positioning facilities in them.
Accessible data
When it comes to buying in the digital maps, "there is now much
more coverage and more realistic pricing which is far less
inhibiting," says Turner.
Moreover, companies can now buy digital maps in smaller
quantities. "You can buy discrete pieces, very small areas instead
of kilometre squares," he says.
There is also a boom in geographically related data, such as
demographics, which can be bought in and added to GIS. Retailers
can better assess the comparative preference for the location of
new outlets taking into account anything from the price of housing
to the age profile of the locals, as well as information on parking
restrictions and access to motorways.
Finally, the Government, in its commitment to openness, has
promised to make available huge amounts of previously unaccessible
data. A great deal of data has geospatial implications, such as
planning applications and development areas.
"About 500 government data sets have spatial information that's
of value to business," says Turner.
Now, cost reductions in implementing GIS is such, says Turner,
that instead of being, "a very major investment", it should add on
not more that 2% or 3% to the IT budget.
GIS has no limits for the corporate imagination.
What's making GIS mainstream?
- Drive to better asset management
- Emergence of Wap technology and growth of location-based
services
- Opening up of huge government data sources with map-based
spatial information which business can exploit, such as planning
information
- Substantial lowering of cost of GIS data. Competition from the
private sector and from the Ordnance Survey lowers the cost of GIS
content
- Costs are also plummeting as GIS systems become non-proprietary
and embrace the Wintel world
- Emergence of more GIS expertise in the consultancy fraternity,
and the arrival of GIS application service providers to take the
load off internal IT departments.
Statistics
- 80% of organisations have an element that is suitable for
'geo-treatment'
- 55% of companies have an IT policy that includes
geo-data
- GIS will add about 2%-3% to the IT budget.
Source: Intergraph