Like GIS, BI is also a Core Tool
Posted by Dave Kerr on Wed, May 25, 2011
I recently read an interesting article on usnews.com about the advent of GIS technology. It's entitled Geospatial Technology as a Core Tool.
Of particular interest to me, as someone who spends his days linking business data from IBM Cognos BI applications with Esri GIS data, were the facts and figures about growth. GIS is growing annually at a rate of about 35%, at least in part by recent uptake in the private sector. Equally interesting was the prediction that by 2018, the number of GIS workers in the USA will increase by a whopping 250,000, or roughly 42%.
That's great news for the BI market, because it will advance understanding of the benefits to be derived by integrating GIS with other core business systems, like BI and analytics. As the article states:
"When you build too many homes along the coast, or near a fault susceptible to earthquakes, everything is spatially related."
The same can be said for retail outlets opened in the wrong spot, oil wells drilled in the wrong place, sales and marketing efforts wasted in the wrong regions with the wrong resources, or medicaid paid to fraudulent claimants in diverse locations.
We get requests daily about integrating maps and spatial query capabilities into BI systems for insurance companies, public health organizations, educational institutions, police and public safety organizations, banks, retail companies, and pretty much every other industry out there. All of them have BI systems in place. More than a few of them have GIS systems as well.
Looks like a lot more of them will have both in the upcoming years.
- dk