Ready For Disruption: How Location Intelligence Can Arm Businesses Against The Unexpected
Location intelligence provides critical context to protect companies against disruption.
If there is anything that 2020 has taught us, the ability to cope well with disruptions is invaluable. Location intelligence, gaining insight from information anchored to a specific location, can help equip businesses with this superpower at a crucial time. However, this data must be accurate, consistent and most of all correctly put into context if it is to support companies in navigating unexpected events such as the current coronavirus pandemic.
Good risk management leads to resiliency. In periods of uncertainty, enriching accurate location intelligence with related data offers companies the agility needed to weather potential disruption and make more confident decisions while adjusting to shifting real-time conditions. “In our connected world, we have more data than ever about location,” says Josh Rogers, CEO of data specialist firm, Precisely. “But leveraging that specialised data for insight is hard. It requires different capabilities than what is in place for traditional transactional data. But closing that gap by using best of breed location intelligence capabilities is what this moment calls for.”
Enriching accurate location intelligence with related data offers companies the agility needed to weather potential disruption
Disruptive Innovation
Location intelligence can prove a highly valued resource in protecting businesses against disruptors, providing a strong foundation cemented in market knowledge. It has served as the cornerstone for industry-leading companies who have developed trust in data to such a degree that they have managed to convert it into actionable business decisions and changed the shape of the market.
Take Uber and Airbnb, for example. These are blue-chip players that have harnessed accurate location intelligence and achieved data integrity – data with accuracy, consistency and context - so effectively that they have carved themselves a competitive lead. Put into context, the extent to which location intelligence can be used is significant. From banks selecting the optimum branch location based on foot traffic and demographic patterns, to insurers hugely improving efficiency both in underwriting and claims processing using accurate and enriched location data, the opportunities for a strategic edge are growing.
The Value of Data
Guaranteeing that data is complete, accurate and consistent is vital, but as Precisely’s Rogers points out, it can be a challenge. An essential part of the journey includes adding an extra dimension to data – context through location intelligence and data enrichment. In withstanding disruption, the who and the what are not enough. The when, where and why are crucial.
Data with a location component accounts for 80 per cent of all data collected
This additional layer of information provides insight that can equip organisations with the knowledge to reduce the financial and, importantly, human, impact of disruption. Most recently, geolocation and proximity data has been used by governments and public health officials in the battle against Covid-19. This data is essential for emerging technologies and data interfaces designed to track the movement of potentially infected people and identify individuals they encounter while contagious. These timely insights have enabled officials to mitigate its spread while arming users with information to protect themselves and others.
Data with a location component accounts for 80 per cent of all data collected. This information is an incredibly valuable resource but analysing it in isolation is not enough. Ingesting location data, verifying its accuracy, and avoiding generalisations is challenging. For companies looking to narrow large sets of relevant location context to uncover key insights, data integrity is an unmissable step.
While location intelligence is not a new discipline, the way it has been increasingly used to move the market forward with hyper-accurate pinpointing of locations and additional context is transformative. Ultimately, it allows companies to optimise opportunities and increase resilience. Attaching dynamic data with this extra insight is a game changer. “It’s the final piece of the puzzle,” explains Rogers. “That extra dimension that gives data its integrity and gives businesses the confidence they need to take the necessary actions and calculated risks to build the possibilities of tomorrow.”
