Key Benefits

75+ Key Benefits that make Geospatial Technology Unique

The following article is an extract from the ‘Eagle Technology Geospatial Benefits e-Book’

Part 1: Introduction

Many organisations struggle to explain to executives or other stakeholders how geospatial technology helps that organisation achieve its stated mission and objectives.  Geospatial technology is no longer simply about 'making maps’; it is now a critical component and system that underpins a range of business activities.

To aid our clients as we work with them on strategic initiatives, we have created a unique framework for geospatial technology's key business benefits. Key points to note:

• This framework focuses on the 'unique' benefits of geospatial technology. While some of the individual benefits can be shared with other technologies (for example 3D functionality is also a feature of CAD systems and gaming software) when several individual benefits are taken together, they provide the unique set of capabilities that geospatial technology provides.
• This framework is not intended to be about individual geospatial functionality, software modules, or tools - there are too many of those to fit into a simple framework; nor is the focus about specific ways that different datasets can be combined for different industry sectors (otherwise the framework would be virtually endless!)
• This is an ever-evolving framework because the benefits of geospatial technology are continuously evolving, therefore we will update this framework and associated material on a frequent basis.
• This framework is intentionally written in ‘plain language. Where possible we have attempted to avoid technical jargon to make the information widely accessible and useful for education.

When applied properly, strategic planning requires a robust and proven approach.  This is important as every organisation has a different set of objectives, goals, strengths, and weaknesses when compared with other organisations. As such, each individual organisation is unlikely to gain (or even need) all the benefits indicated below. Therefore, the Eagle Technology Business Consultancy Team has a very structured approach to focus on what benefits are important for our clients. We have developed and maintain a core knowledge database and template catalogue to deal with many aspects of strategic planning – the following framework is one of several interconnected datasets within that database. Our experienced personnel use these resources to create techniques to simplify, tailor and enhance strategic planning activities.

For more information about how Eagle Technology can assist your organisation with Strategic Plans and Business Cases see:

https://www.eagle.co.nz/consulting (New Zealand and South Pacific Nations only)

More explanation of the individual items are included in our Geospatial Benefits e-Book (see link at the end of this article).

Part 2: Benefit Classes

The benefit types in the framework are grouped into ‘benefits classes’, as explained below:

	Operational Efficiency These are benefits that affect typical operational activities of any organisation such as service or product requests, asset management and logistics.
	Field Mobility The use of mobile devices (phones, tablets or GPS units) by members of personnel is a growing benefit area.
	Data Enrichment Data is the new gold. A key strength of geospatial technology is the unique ability of geospatial data to be combined through a common framework: geographic coordinates. This quality is enhanced tremendously by the availability of vast quantities of data from thousands of organisations, often free of charge and open to be used for innovative purposes.
	Enhanced Data Capture Technology to capture business data using geospatial technology is rapidly emerging, evolving, and becoming cheaper and easier to use. There are also many ways that the quality of business data is being enhanced through geospatial techniques.
	Stakeholder Engagement These class groups benefit types that relate to improved communications channels with the multiple stakeholders that have an interest in geospatial technology, whether they are data users, management, regulatory authorities, partners, or the general public.
	Visualisation Closely aligned with Stakeholder Engagement is the benefit group related to a better content of communications through the use of maps and 3D representations (the distinction between these two groups being the first focuses on the ‘channel’, whereas the second focuses on the presentation).
	Risk Management Strategic risks at an enterprise level through to operational risks on a day-to-day basis can be assessed, measured and mitigated by understanding geography-based risks or patterns.
	People This benefit class covers the learning and satisfaction that people gain through the availability of geospatial technology.
	Distinctive Software Capabilities There are certain groups of software functionality that are specialised for use with geospatial technology. This collection of software functions is unique or highly distinctive and is a distinguishing feature of geospatial technology.
	Distinctive Geospatial Data Architecture The ways that geometries, including 3D objects, are represented within geospatial systems is specialised. The ways that these objects are connected or attributed with additional data is also distinctive and provides a great deal of additional functional capability when combined with geospatial software tools.
	Increased production of geospatial goods or services Tools for the production of paper maps or reports containing maps are simple and efficient, including the ability for end-users to make their own maps. Increased availability and sophistication of geospatial technology also opens up new opportunities for organisations to provide geospatial services (either to internal business teams or externally as consultancy).
	Technical Benefits This is a special class that covers the benefits that are expected of modern enterprise systems. While these benefits are not particularly unique when compared to other enterprise-grade systems, there are nevertheless many important considerations that should be taken into account when determining geospatial strategies. Essential considerations that are found with enterprise-grade systems include security, capacity, authentication

These benefits classes, with expanded information about the benefits types, plus examples of each ‘in the real world’ are available in the e-Book: Eagle Technology: Geospatial Benefits Framework. 

For more information about how Eagle Technology can assist with Strategic Plans and Business Cases for your organisation then please contact us:  (New Zealand and South Pacific Nations only)

This framework and associated material is released under Creative Commons: Attribution-No Derivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0)