I was listening to NPR’s Talk of the Nation a few weeks ago and heard a fascinating discussion with Eric Dezenhall, a crisis management expert, about how companies can successfully navigate crises that threaten their public image (Feb. 4, 2010).
Dezenhall made an excellent point about the position in which organizations find themselves when something goes wrong. He said that the first order of business – and the greatest challenge – is determining how widespread a problem is. Does it affect a single store or an entire region? Is there one unhappy customer or are there hundreds of them? Does the problem affect a single component or an entire product line? And where in the supply chain or manufacturing process did the problem occur?
Without quick, clear answers to these questions, companies have to guess at how best to respond, and sometimes, they guess wrong and never recover. These days, businesses can’t afford to guess; they have to know. 
That’s where “location intelligence” comes in. The context of geospatial data, itself, is nothing new, nor is the idea that this data holds tremendous potential. What is new is that business intelligence technology has finally advanced to the point where geographic-oriented data that already exists in organizations can be effectively accessed, analyzed and acted upon.
I believe without a doubt that location intelligence is the answer to the challenge Dezenhall described and to some of the greatest challenges that businesses face today. An organization that actively studies geospatial data in the context of its business interests is well positioned to answer the questions he posed, not just in response to a public crisis but perhaps to prevent the crisis from ever happening in the first place.
Moving forward, I don’t think companies will have the option of choosing whether or not to embark on a location intelligence initiative. Either they will jump in and start seeing results, or they will stand back and watch others pass them by.
Michael Gonzales, managing partner of DSS42 LLC, an industry research company specializing in strategy and architecture, was quoted in the Q1 issue of Teradata Magazine as saying, “If you’re not at least at the start of a spatial perspective in your data warehouse, then you’re behind. In the next two to three years, it will be difficult to remain competitive without some spatial perspective.”
Time—and competitors—wait for no one. So go ahead and check out that article to start exploring how location intelligence can transform your business.
