Top unsung business benefits for GIS

Top intangible business benefit of geographic information: providing context.

ESRI has a webpage about business benefits and return on investment of GIS: http://roi.esri.com, and the discussion is largely platform agnostic.

That page and an associated book, "Business Benefits of GIS" authored by David Maguire (ESRI), Victoria Kouyoumjian (ESRI), and Ross Smith (PA Consulting), identify the following benefits:

• Saving Time;
• Increasing Efficiency;
• Increasing Accuracy;
• Increasing Productivity;
• Automating/Improving Workflow;
• Reducing Costs/Saving Money;
• Managing Resources Better to Improve Existing Operations;
• Improving Quality, Efficiency and Service;
• Reducing Costs and Increasing Direct Marketing Precision;
• Supporting Informed Decision-making; and
• Increasing Communication and Collaboration.

The following pdf document (in this doc, written in regard to public organizations and utilities) offers brief sketch use cases on how these objectives might be accomplished: http://downloads2.esri.com/ROI/docs/ChapterTwo_ToolsTemplates/Benefits_Table_Examples.pdf

We've found that spatially enabling data that has just been sitting around in databases for years and years allows us to QC the data. You can look at lat/longs in a table all day long and the numbers are just numbers (to most people). Put those locations on map and all of the sudden you can see errors in your data in ways that were never possible before (That point should be here and not there!).