No matter the field that your business operates in, one of the key elements of success is doing thorough research of the market. To help you with market research, various analytics tools will give you an advantage over your competitors.
With each new technology, there comes a variety of uses for it in the world of business. Geospatial analytics is a relatively new market, and a growing one, and by implementing it into your business, you will be way ahead of your competitors.
Geospatial analytics differs from other software tools. This type of platform has an application in the real world and they are much more useful than some productivity or employee engagement tool. Geospatial analytics platforms can primarily help you avoid catastrophes such as floods or wildfires.
It can be said that geospatial analytics can even save lives. But it has a variety of other uses such as protecting the company from frauds, increasing your profit, and increasing the everyday safety of your workers.
What Is Geospatial Analytics?
Geospatial analytics is an analytic method that’s been around for a few decades but as the technology advanced, it found a variety of uses for individuals and companies. Geospatial analytics gathers data about Earth’s surface.
It tracks geographical data such as elevation and weather conditions, demographic data such as population density, but also constructions in the environment such as roads and buildings. Everyone had the chance to use GPS which relies on geospatial data.
Other forms of technology that use geospatial data include satellite imagery, coordination systems, and technology in the growing internet of things industry. Governments often rely on geospatial data to predict weather events, population growth, and traffic patterns, data which they can use for future investments and urban planning.
Geospatial analytics has also found use during the pandemic which allowed governments to manage the restrictions more effectively. Governments and large corporations had the access to this technology for some time.
But in the past years with the development of cloud computing, and data learning geospatial analytic tools have become more accessible to the wider public. Utilizing geospatial analytics can be a significant benefit to small, medium, and large businesses.
But the bigger your business is, the more ways geospatial analytics can benefit your company. Optimizing the transportation and logistics aspects of your businesses can’t be done easier than by using geospatial analytics platforms. But its benefits aren’t limited to the physical aspects of the business.
Geospatial analytics can help you optimize the marketing campaign of your business, and improve the safety of your workers. By optimizing the routes for your company, you are also saving time for your workers, which will help you keep the morale of your company high and your employees satisfied.
Helps You Optimize Your Marketing
A good geospatial platform will allow you to track the demographic data of your customers. Understanding your customers will give you a significant advantage in various aspects of your business.
Having access to demographic data will allow you to have an insight into things like age groups, income levels, employment status, and other useful information. Using this information, you will be able to run a marketing campaign much more efficiently.
First, you should understand the target group of your company, and by analyzing the population data, you will see in which areas you should run marketing campaigns, and which areas you should ignore.
Beyond the basic information such as age and gender, it’s possible to acquire information such as purchasing habits and lifestyle data. With this type of data, you will be able to have an even closer look at consumers in your area.
In case you are yet to start your business or open a new branch, this data will allow you to calculate your risks more precisely. Of course, simple numbers can’t predict the success of your business or a product, but doing geospatial analysis will significantly increase your chances.
Improves Your Logistics And Transportation
Geospatial analytics will have the biggest impact on the logistics and transportation aspects of your business. Utilizing geospatial analytics will especially be useful if your company operates in fields such as freight forwarding, tourism, travel, etc. but it’s helpful in numerous other ways.
To start optimizing the routes for your company, you will need GPS sensors and a geospatial platform. GPS sensors and geospatial data are useless unless you use the analytics in the right way.
Using these tools you will be able to analyze the regular traffic patterns, length of the trip from one point to another, potential hazards such as car accidents, road closures, constructions, and things like protests, rallies, demonstrations, or political instabilities.
With this type of data, you will be a step ahead when it comes to potential problems that might occur on the road. The fastest and safest route to your destination might vary daily.
For example, during rush hour, a longer route might help you get to your destination faster. Even during the weekends, and holidays, you might get unexpected traffic jams, which geospatial platforms might help you avoid.
Protects Your Company From Fraud
Geospatial analytics might help your business save money and identify frauds if you operate in the fields of insurance or healthcare fields. By using geospatial data you can track the weather conditions in the area of interest with precision.
For example, you will be able to check the legitimacy of insurance claims of homeowners in situations such as storm and weather damage.
The usefulness of geospatial analytics is also shown in situations such as credit card frauds and other financial frauds. As a company, you will be able to track the location of your workers and have an insight into whether they were responsible during their voyage.
Geospatial data usefulness isn’t limited to preventing physical fraud and undesirable activities. In the field of cyber security, geospatial data can be helpful in various ways. In case you are working remotely, you will have employees from different countries connect to your servers, however.
By having the location data of your workers, upon seeing logins or login attempts from unusual locations you will be able to prevent their malicious intent much faster.
In other situations, such as cyber-attacks on your servers or by receiving too much spam from a certain location. You will be able to blacklist the locations from which the attacks are coming.
Increases Safety Of Your Workers
Through various features of geospatial analytics platforms such as being able to track extreme weather conditions or frauds, you will be able to protect your workers in a variety of ways.
In industries such as transportation, geospatial analytics will allow you to provide your workers with the fastest and safest way to the location where they are needed.
Primarily, many companies can protect their workers by avoiding operating in locations where there are extreme weather hazards. But there are other ways of protecting your workers such as allowing your workers to work remotely.
Helps You Analyze Severe Weather Events
Natural disasters can alter the complete future of hundreds of companies. They are not only dangerous for businesses, but also for people, their homes, and everything that stands in their way.
Although severe weather conditions are a rarity for the majority of the world, it’s good to have an analysis of the previous history of weather conditions for the region. Geospatial analysis platforms give you an insight into climate change & extreme weather conditions such as hurricanes, wildfires, and floods.
Unfortunately, extreme weather conditions aren’t something that can be completely avoided, but the risk of losing profit or damaging your business can be significantly lowered by using geospatial analytics.
The geospatial analysis will allow you to understand whether the location of your future business is safe in the long run. But it will also allow you to protect the interests of your company as of now.
Having an insight into the weather conditions will allow you to diversify the storage of your assets and inventory, or to completely move them from one location to another. Protecting your inventory will help you save a lot of money.
By having an insight into the weather conditions you will be able to secure your company in various ways. The geospatial analysis will allow you to optimize the travel and shipping routes of your company in a way that you can avoid financial losses and potential damage to the personnel.
In certain areas where there is a low risk for severe weather, you can lower your expenses by not paying for insurance that provides coverage for such events. On the other hand, it is a good idea to pay for insurance in areas where the risk does indeed exists.
Conclusion
Geospatial analytics is a field that’s been rapidly developing in the past few years. Businesses that adopted this technology early on have a significant advantage over those that didn’t.
As the company expands, geospatial analytics becomes more and more useful for organizing the logistics of the company efficiently.
Most importantly, implementing geospatial analytics might help you to increase the safety of your workers and their health.
Ella Marcotte
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