Achieving Business Success with GIS

Preface vii

Acknowledgements ix

1 Introduction 1

2 The Spatial Information Industry 7

2.1 Background to the Survey 8

2.2 Value of the SI Industry 9

2.3 GIS Product Usage 13

2.4 Spatial Applications 17

2.5 Training 19

2.6 Spatial Data 21

2.7 Imagery 26

2.8 Mobile Computing 28

2.9 Regional SI Initiatives 29

2.10 Summary 30

3 Introducing the Elements of a GIS Strategy 33

3.1 The Traditional IT Strategy Approach 34

3.2 The SI Strategy Approach 36

3.3 Influences of Disruptive and Distractive Technology 37

4 Developing the Business Focus 41

5 Developing the Data/Information Focus 47

5.1 Introduction 48

5.2 Metadata 48

5.3 Data/System Architectures 49

5.4 Defining the ‘Data Gap’ 53

5.5 GIS Data Standards and Related Issues 59

5.6 GIS Data Interoperability 61

5.7 Summary – Data Interoperability 64

5.8 Summary – the Data/Information Focus 64

6 Developing the Organisational Focus 65

6.1 Introduction 65

6.2 Impact of Organisational Structure on GIS 66

6.3 Achieving an Organisational Focus for GIS 67

6.4 Business Process Mapping and Re-engineering 69

6.5 Training and Support Issues 71

6.6 SWOT Analysis 72

6.7 Summary – Organisational Focus 73

7 Developing the Application and Technology Focus 75

7.1 GIS Issues 75

7.2 IT Issues 83

7.3 System/Data Integration Issues 85

7.4 Developing the Functional Requirements Specification 87

8 Developing a GIS Strategy 91

8.1 Functional Requirements Specification (FRS) 91

8.2 Correlating against the CSFs 92

8.3 Developing the GIS Strategy 93

8.4 Summary 93

9 Cost/Benefit Analysis/Return on Investment 95

9.1 Broad Costs 97

9.2 Broad Benefits 107

9.3 Broad Cost/Benefit Summary 113

9.4 Business Case 117

9.5 Conclusion 117

10 Selecting a GIS 119

10.1 Introduction 119

10.2 Selecting a GIS using a Tendering Process 121

10.3 The Final Stage of the Selection Process 136

11 Implementing GIS 139

11.1 Staff Training 139

11.2 Data Capture and/or Conversion 141

11.3 Defining the KPIs (Goalposts) for Successful Implementation 143

11.4 Implementing and ‘Setting to Work’ of the GIS 143

11.5 Undertaking a Post Implementation Review 144

11.6 Benchmarking 144

11.7 Summary 145

12 The Best and the Worst 147

12.1 And the Best is . . . Google Earth 147

12.2 And the Best is (also) . . . Web 2.0 148

12.3 And the Worst is . . . 149

13 Closing Remarks 151

Glossary 153

Index 155