Technology

Top 6 Industries That use the GIS Technology

GIS Technology

Business professionals today require large amounts of geospatial data to make effective strategic decisions. This has increased the importance of Geographic Information Science (GIS) technology among various businesses. Innovative organizations and professionals are adopting GIS technologies into their business operations. They are using it to improve the capital, infrastructure, and energy of the companies.

GIS is an important tool that drives strategic decisions for any industry or business. The location intelligence data supports customers, industries, and businesses to make informed, life-changing decisions. Let us look at the top six industries that significantly use GIS technology.

See Also: Influence of Artificial Intelligence on Business Decisions

Supply chain management and logistics

With changing customer preferences and the rapid growth of e-commerce, bringing products to the customers’ doorsteps has evolved. Businesses must manage their supply chain efficiency. GIS enables businesses to track inventory and shipments, helping them save money on logistics and improve supply chain efficiency.

Example:

The best example is fresh farm produce delivery to supermarkets and grocers around the world. The farm products are perishable and need to arrive in top condition. The final-mile delivery plays a crucial role in the success of supply chain management. 

The features of real-time location tracking in delivery logistics software are built with the foundation of GIS technology. Coupled with route optimization, it helps agricultural supply chain professionals track the optimal route recommendations and make sure they delivered the products on time. Real-time monitoring helps agricultural businesses to identify problem areas in product quality and improve future deliveries.

See Also: Customer Data security

Insurance

Many insurance companies take many factors into account while determining risk. Location is the most crucial factor when evaluating risk. Some regions are prone to floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, or even social factors such as propensity towards crime, etc. Having accurate insights on location helps insurance companies set coverage rates appropriately. Using GIS technology helps insurance companies with:

  • Historic records for the likelihood of any natural disasters
  • Demographic insights on the likelihood of a car accident
  • Local geography data that provides the possibility of landslide, cyclone, or flood

Forestry and timber

Being a complex field, forestry plays a crucial role in preserving ecosystems. GIS technology helps governments determine conditions in wooded areas and efficiently plan harvests. Its location-based insights help foresters plan land plots that allow tree species to thrive. It enables them to effectively execute afforestation and species regeneration programs.

With GIS technology, foresters can map out the maximum and minimum temperature, annual rainfall, severity and length of the dry season, humidity, and other such factors. It assists them in identifying positive and negative patterns of any hurricanes, cyclones, heavy rainfalls, floods, forest fires, etc.

GIS technology helps foresters plan and execute environmentally responsible timber harvesting. This technology, blended with data on soil type, soil condition, roads, forest type, etc. supports cost-benefit analysis. It enables them to monitor, identify and rectify losses because of pest infestations, supporting them to make economically sound harvesting practices.

Urban planning

Urban planning is more than just identifying vacant spaces and constructing new buildings on them. Whether it is the placement of governmental, residential structures, or business buildings, it impacts the quality of those who live there.

GIS technology helps urban planners accommodate the community’s citizens, inflicting no harm to historic structures or natural spaces. It assists them in finding the best places to build renewable energy infrastructures, such as windmills and solar farms, and adds additional places for parking lots. It also enables them to add a building or a road and replace an aging infrastructure based on real-time traffic insights.

Banking

The success or failure of banking businesses and operations depend majorly on where they are located. Banks should select their branch locations carefully based on local crime rates and potential customer base. As online services grow increasingly popular, and fewer branches remain open, locations must be picked strategically. Sometimes, the trickiest part of planning bank operations is choosing which branches to open and which branches to close.

Using GIS technology, banks can identify locations based on higher loan defaults, and lower utilization rates, or determine nearby competitors. Mapping demographics with this technology helps them figure out the demand for financial products and services of people in that area.

For example, high rates of car ownership in an area can make it a suitable place for auto insurance businesses to crop up.

Health and Human Services

Medical professionals are well aware of the fact that location contributes to a patient’s well-being. GIS technology helps health and human organizations identify high-risk areas, common origination points, or map cases of a disease.

For example, GIS technology provides medical information that southern California has high cases of heart attacks. This information helps healthcare professionals deploy awareness campaigns in places where they are needed the most. This enables the public health departments to direct prevention efforts for disease and efficiently address health problems when they arise.

Conclusion

With the world increasingly becoming data-driven, businesses should do everything to stay ahead of the competition. GIS technologies help organizations unlock the true potential of location-based insights in their businesses and make crucial strategic decisions.

Published by
Gaurav Malhotra

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