Using Spatial Information to Streamline Decision-Making

Most organizations – whether they realize it or not – would be better off if they looked at solving their problems through a spatial lens. Knowing where to buy a new piece of property, or locating a new cell tower, or figuring out a place to locate a new school or hospital – all of these decisions actually have a “best” answer; it’s just a matter of integrating the right data points. This is where GIS comes in.

It was not the case 20 years ago that data was abundant, but nowadays, reliable data layers exist for virtually everything under the sun. Layers such as parcel property values, 3D terrain, density and height of vegetation, and the population density of cell phone users in a given area – all once overlaid and spatial analysis is performed, this goes a long way to determine the answer to that simple cell tower question. Using GIS and the right data, you can actually find the absolute best place to locate that next tower. And that is just one of a million examples of how GIS can help a business gain a competitive edge.

Whether it’s determining the most efficient and cost-effective route in the logistics industry, the safest locations to visit in a society dealing with a pandemic, the best investment for real estate, or almost anything else you can think of, GIS typically enables people to make better-informed decisions, when the science is applied properly.