Location intelligence: what it is and how it will transform your business

According to a recent report by Boston Consulting Group published under the title “Unlocking value with location intelligencers”, 95% of managers in financial services sectors, such as retail businesses, logistics, real estate and tourism all agree that geospatial data plays a fundamental role in generating business and creating value in companies today.

The results of the survey by the Boston Consulting Group – carried out with leaders of 500 companies located in different parts of the world – leave no room for doubt. 91% believe that this information will be even more essential for their companies’ success within three to five years. So let’s take a look at what Location Intelligence consists of and how it will transform companies all over the world in the next few years.

What is Location Intelligence?

Location Intelligence consists of using cartographic and geospatial data combined with the internal data of a specific organisation’s customers to improve the experience of these users and the underlying business processes. 

Depending on the degree of adoption of the Location Intelligence, companies can be classified into two large groups: leaders (those with a mature strategy to place a value on geospatial data), and followers (those who are in the first stages of implementation). The thing that drives followers to becoming leaders is that they enjoy up to double the competitive advantages in terms of customer satisfaction, sales performance and operational efficiency compared to the followers.

A practical example for companies from the real estate sector about how to benefit from this Location Intelligence could consist of comparing the profile of properties they manage for rental or sale with a multidimensional image of the neighbourhoods they belong to, with the journey times to specific points of interest, with the proximity of schools, health centres, or any other detail that may be relevant for the potential client profile. Nowadays, technology enables us to reach this level of personalisation of the offer, and much more.

Or for a financial services company, being able to detect fraud by cross-referencing debit or credit card use data with the geolocation of the establishments where they are being used, or advertising services to detect the use of payment methods when the cardholder is travelling for work or pleasure.  This is a reality that many companies we all know of are already using successfully. 

Location Intelligence use cases

Below, we show eight possible use cases of Location Intelligence, that can be applied to a wide range of sectors, from retail and electronic commerce to tourism and hospitality, to transport and logistics or financial services.

As we can see, the four first cases could be classified as being focussed on the customer experience and the next four on the operational efficiency of companies.

• Geomarketing and targeted communication: offers of products and/or services based on geography.
• Improvement of the client’s digital service: operational location of the client to optimise their online experience, such as the location of the store or the auto-completion of the address. 
• Improvement of the customer experience in the store: location-based information to improve the experience of the customer in the store.
• Prices based on the area: price adjustments for products, assets and services based on location.
• Planning and optimisation of routes: use of maps and geospatial data to optimise routes of the driving, delivery and collection fleet.
• Optimisation of the supply network and chain: use of maps and geospatial data to optimise the location of shops, branches, offices and warehouses.
•  Optimisation of staff coverage: use of maps  and geospatial data to allocate staff and the sales force to maximise coverage and efficiency.
• Optimisation of decision support functions: use of maps and geospatial data to authenticate users, detect and prevent fraud. 

Five tips to start using Location Intelligence

1.  Define a strategy to take advantage of Location Intelligence to improve both the customer experience and operational efficiency. Seek forms of using cartographic and geospatial data in a holistic and innovative way.

2. Think ahead to new digital business models and to constantly changing customer expectations, where cartography and geospatial data play a fundamental role, to make new value proposals focussed on building deeper and more personalised relationships with customers possible.

3. Try to systematically show the value that geospatial data provides. Establish clear objectives, regularly measure the return on investment, collect data linked to specific customers to measure the impact, etc.

4. Invest in solid management and data analysis capabilities. These capabilities should range from the intake of geospatial data and the integration with other sources of information, to the creation of analytical methods to obtain information that enables us to implement truly attractive use cases.

5. Proactively guarantee the protection of your customers’ geospatial data. We are all increasingly more cautious when it comes to sharing our private data for marketing purposes, and here we are referring, for example, to the recording of our own movements or journey patterns. 

Solutions to continue growing 

Google is the leading supplier in cartography and geospatial management systems, given it has spent more than 15 years mapping the world and exploring ways of helping all types of companies to grow, from adapting customer experiences to optimising processes.  

At Intelligence Partner, as  a Partner Premier of Google Maps, we can offer you a personalised consultancy and development service in accordance with your needs. If you are looking to increase your sales, meet the demands of a new generation of digital native consumers and optimise business processes to be more competitive, don’t hesitate to contact us.