Geospatial data might sound a bit abstract, but it is actually everywhere. In fact, more than 80% of all business-related information and decisions involve geographic data. The reason is simple – the ability to analyze geographic data relevant to your business and make informed decisions is a significant factor in the outcome of all your business processes.
In this article, you'll learn about the fundamentals of geospatial data and how it can increase your business outcomes.
What is Geospatial Data?
Geospatial data or spatial data is information mapped with geographic details available on any geospatial platform. It offers you a way to visualize patterns and trends in data that would otherwise be difficult to see.
Geospatial data are also called location-based data such as postal codes, shipping codes, street addresses, longitudes, and latitudes. So, when a customer provides their address details, for example, that's one form of geospatial data.
Geospatial data analysis involves collecting, displaying, and manipulating Geospatial Information System (GIS) data, such as satellite photographs, imagery, and historical data. In all, geospatial data aims to gather, store, recover, and display extended amounts of information in a spatial context.
Why Do You Need a Geospatial Platform?
A geospatial platform is a digital location that offers both shared and trusted geospatial data for use by the public to meet business needs. With a geospatial platform, you can be in total control of your data, connect securely to your existing data sources, and execute complex workflows.
Whether your needs are map visualizations, custom application of location intelligence, or implementation of advanced geospatial analysis, a geospatial platform is what you need.
As a result of geospatial platforms, there’s easy access to geospatial data. Thus, more detailed results can be retrieved from common business processes like
- Risk assessment for insurers,
- Site selection for retailers,
- Granular customer analysis for customer relationship management
Categories of Geospatial Data
There are several categories of geospatial data. Thus, simply understanding what kind of information your business needs to make decisions will help you know which category suits your business.
Point of interest
Point of interest (POI) data contains information on non-residential properties and structures. Primarily, anywhere people meet and hang out, besides a private dwelling, can be regarded as a POI.
Demographics
With demographic data, you can get details about the people who live in a specific geographical area. This includes attributes such as age, race, sex/gender, household income, educational attainment, and average housing fees.
Mobility
Mobility data are GPS signals sent anonymously by people's cell phones to provide information on their location. With mobility-related data, you won't be able to track users and their activity. However, you'll be able to measure activity around points of interest and communities to see the rate at which people visit there and in what magnitudes.
Address
Address-related data are mainly information, usually in the form of geographic coordinates or postage details, but may also include other features.
Environmental
Environmental data include indicators such as temperature, wildlife migration, weather patterns, natural disasters, and seismic activity. They consist mainly of information on what's going on in the natural geographic world.
Benefits of Geospatial Data for Your Business Outcomes
Access to valuable details about your competitors
To get the best out of your business, you must always consider your competitors - who they are, where they are, and how their business activities affect your own. Geospatial data can help you understand how much geographic influence your business has regarding your customer's behavior and who your competitors are.
For example, with geospatial data, you may discover that customers choose your competitor's store over yours due to their larger parking space. Or you may realize that those nearby stores you assume would compete with you aren't doing so because your target customers are from different demographics or locations. To further analyze your competitors, consider using reliable competitor analysis tools for SEO.
Refined marketing efforts
With indicators such as census and demographic, Geospatial data helps you know your target audience and where they are located. This information lets you be more precise in your promotions and advertising strategies. In addition, geospatial data can help you effectively plan your campaign activities. You'll be able to identify areas where consumer demand is high and focus your efforts on those areas.
Early detection of potential problems and opportunities
Unlike other traditional market research methods, geospatial data helps you quickly spot data anomalies and give your business a heads-up regarding incoming changes that are harmful to your business progress. By analyzing geospatial data, you can easily recognize patterns and trends that may indicate potential problems or opportunities and respond to those changes quickly.
For example, you might learn that your customer's complaints are focused on a particular area of your business. In that case, you can quickly look into the causes of the problem and take active steps to rectify it. On the other hand, if you observe an increase in demand in a specific area, you'll take steps to make the best out of the situation.
Improved customers’ satisfaction
Geospatial data can help to improve your customers’ satisfaction. You can easily personalize customers' experiences through segmentation based on location, location-based push notifications, targeted online advertising, and custom recommendations for consumers.
Where Can You Get Geospatial Data?
Once you have fully grasped the benefits of geospatial data for your business, it's essential to know where to get the correct data for building your business's geospatial data ecosystem. Thankfully, geospatial data are abundantly available on mobile and data-centric technologies. But, as much as many sources provide geospatial data, not all of them will give the specific data you may need. Consider using a geospatial platform for a tailored experience and more robust offers.
Here's a list of some reliable geospatial data sources:
- Esri Open Data Hub: Esri Open Data Hub houses the most extensive GIS data for free. There are over 250,000 open datasets from more than 5,000 organizations globally.
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NASA's Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC): With over 800 citations, SEDAC offers a wide variety of free global data, including population characteristics such as age and education.
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ISCGM Global Map: Unfortunately, the International Steering Committee for Global Mapping (ISCGM) data is no longer available because they have archived all their data on the Global Map GitHub. Global Map offers numerous free GID datasets for anyone to access.
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FAO GeoNetwork: FAO GeoNetwork seeks to improve global sustainable development, and they house free GIS data from the United Nations.
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Terra Populus: Terra Populus integrates census data from over 160 countries worldwide. It also contains aggregate and household-level data of up to six decades old for more than 80 countries.
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United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP): UNEP is the certified source for UN data and offers several spatial and non-spatial data for many themes.
3 Top Businesses Using Geospatial Data To Increase Their Business Outcomes
These three top businesses – Google, Amazon, and Wendy's – use geospatial data to optimize their strategic decisions for effective operations, increased revenue, and sustained business growth.
With over 1 billion unique users monthly, Google map is one of the most used applications globally. It is a complex system that contains traffic, such as the logic of places, directions, speed limits, freeway on-ramps, and traffic conditions.
Google offers this complex service by using geospatial data to deliver digital maps and other dynamic content for navigation and location-related purposes. Google realized about $46 billion in revenue in the third quarter of 2020. From this revenue alone, Google map brings about $4.3 billion yearly.
Amazon
In 2021, Amazon, a digital retail platform, reported its annual revenue of $469.822 billion, a 21.7% increase from 2020's annual revenue of $386.064 billion. Although there are other digital retail platforms globally, Amazon has stayed ahead of the curve by constantly devising new and creative ways of doing business. One such way is by merging GIS with Artificial Intelligence.
On the 31st of August 2020, Amazon launched its Prime Air Drone Project. After identifying the problem of how to deliver items to customers quickly and safely in one hour or less, Amazon has created a solution – delivering packages to its customers by drones – thanks to geospatial data. With the geospatial data they collected, they can detect locations where the drone project will work effectively, the best type of drones to use, the best amount of distance to fly the drones, and the best times to fly them.
Wendy's
Wendy's, one of the most popular fast-food spots in the United States, closed 2020 with more than $1.6 billion in revenue. What made Wendy's successful?
Wendy's constantly uses geospatial data in determining its location sites. They carefully research locations and employ mapping software and census data to determine regions with high populations and potential customers. With the help of the data, they can quickly evaluate household demographics, average income, and nearby businesses before site construction.
Start increasing your business outcomes with geospatial data
By leveraging geospatial data, you can increase your business outcomes by gaining valuable insights into your business, maximizing your business outcome, and outrunning your competitors.
As you begin using geospatial data, you should consider using it carefully and intelligently. The best place to start is to figure out what information your business needs and compare it to what's available. You can then proceed by auditing existing data streams to identify incoming geospatial content and continue from there.