With the advent of modern search engines like Google, our expectations regarding easy access to information changed. “Search” became common practice for individuals in their personal capacities as well as for business use, and today the word “googling” has moved from the common lexicon into the Oxford English Dictionary.
We are seeing a similar ideological shift with another new technology, says Richard Firth, serial entrepreneur and CEO of MIP Holdings. That technology is geo-location, applications which allow the easy identification and location of physical items for a number of uses.
“There is a fundamental difference between search and location,” says Firth. “And the concept is changing. With search, we can easily access data – product data, stock data, and so on. With location, it’s not about finding an item in the data, it’s about locating a physical item.”
This has obvious uses in many industries and many applications: From finding a physical location such as a company’s address, to finding a particular stock item in a large warehouse, location can make every element of business easier.
This applies to all sectors. Whether being able to track, plot and understand the location of infrastructure and resources in the mining sector; assessing risk based on location from an insurance perspective; or mapping and tracking stock levels and movements in retail environments, location is becoming increasingly important as companies try to create greater efficiencies and obtain better insights.
So much so, that some business intelligence (BI) vendors have added a Location Intelligence element that allows the application of geographic contexts to business data.
“The ability to map, visualise and understand data from a geographical standpoint will become an increasingly important part of any business intelligence (BI) solution, according to IDC, who points out that more than 80% of the data collected by organisations has a spatial element.
“The benefits promoted for the analysis of big data aren’t achievable without this element. Unless you have the data, you have nothing to mine,” says Firth.
Geolocation doesn’t change any results, he points out, it merely adds an extra component to the data. “GPS and mapping data were not widely available before. Now, easy access to this information is bringing new value to businesses.”
In addition, Firth believes that the move towards more geo-location-enabled applications and uses confirms TomTom’s strategy of focusing on a collection of mapping and location information rather than the device, and companies like Waytag – which allows dynamic allocation and the ability to attach location to a device and/or person and/or product and/or company – will be the forerunners of the new business approach which has location as an essential element.
He says that the delay in the technology becoming ubiquitous was mainly a requirement of the wireless networks to catch up with the ability of GPS devices to offer a broad range of coverage.
“As coverage increases so will the use of location-based services. This is improving rapidly, and the potential offered by this technology remains huge.”
