Achieving Business Success with GIS

by Douglas, Bruce

• ISBN13: 9780470727249
• ISBN10: 0470727241
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-03-10
• Publisher: Wiley

Summary

Written at a practical level, suited to the business audience, this exceptional book explores the business environment of making GIS successful. It applies academic rigor to practical and commercial implementation issues and offers viewpoints from all parties involved in GIS implementation. Achieving Business Success with GIS provides tangible advice ranging from technical and financial to organizational and commercial. It is unique in that it does not stop short of providing, without hype or embellishment, practical advice and real examples regarding the total cost of ownership of a project or finance and return investment of GIS products. Achieving Business Success with GIS highlights that the use of GIS technology needs to be focused on the business issues, not the technology. The book begins by describing the use of GIS in a global context within a business environment as the background to outlining the need for organizations to have a strategy for their GIS. The book then goes on to explore the elements of a GIS strategy and explains issues which are relevant for such approaches and how to go about developing it. In the closing chapters of this book, the process of specifying and tendering for a GIS are discussed to ensure that the focus of the reader remains on the business issues of the organization. This is followed by examples of the best and worst Geographic Information Systems including a discussion on Google Earth and Web 2.0.The combination of the statistics from the GIS / Spatial surveys and the author's consulting experiences make this book an invaluable resource for GIS managers in government (federal, state and local) and utilities, organisations using GIS, and students and lecturers in this field.

Author Biography

Bruce Douglas. Director, Corporate GIS Consultants, Bankstown, NSW  (New South Wales), Australia, Past-President Geospatial Information and Technology Association (GITA),  Australia / New Zealand.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. vii
Acknowledgements	p. ix
Introduction	p. 1
The Spatial Information Industry	p. 7
Background to the Survey	p. 8
Value of the SI Industry	p. 9
GIS Product Usage	p. 13
Spatial Applications	p. 17
Training	p. 19
Spatial Data	p. 21
Imagery	p. 26
Mobile Computing	p. 28
Regional SI Initiatives	p. 29
Summary	p. 30
Introducing the Elements of a GIS Strategy	p. 33
The Traditional IT Strategy Approach	p. 34
The SI Strategy Approach	p. 36
Influences of Disruptive and Distractive Technology	p. 37
Developing the Business Focus	p. 41
Developing the Data/Information Focus	p. 47
Introduction	p. 48
Metadata	p. 48
Data/System Architectures	p. 49
Defining the 'Data Gap'	p. 53
GIS Data Standards and Related Issues	p. 59
GIS Data Interoperability	p. 61
Summary - Data Interoperability	p. 64
Summary - the Data/Information Focus	p. 64
Developing the Organisational Focus	p. 65
Introduction	p. 65
Impact of Organisational Structure on GIS	p. 66
Achieving an Organisational Focus for GIS	p. 67
Business Process Mapping and Re-engineering	p. 69
Training and Support Issues	p. 71
SWOT Analysis	p. 72
Summary - Organisational Focus	p. 73
Developing the Application and Technology Focus	p. 75
GIS Issues	p. 75
IT Issues	p. 83
System/Data Integration Issues	p. 85
Developing the Functional Requirements Specification	p. 87
Developing a GIS Strategy	p. 91
Functional Requirements Specification (FRS)	p. 91
Correlating against the CSFs	p. 92
Developing the GIS Strategy	p. 93
Summary	p. 93
Cost/Benefit Analysis/Return on Investment	p. 95
Broad Costs	p. 97
Broad Benefits	p. 107
Broad Cost/Benefit Summary	p. 113
Business Case	p. 117
Conclusion	p. 117
Selecting a GIS	p. 119
Introduction	p. 119
Selecting a GIS using a Tendering Process	p. 121
The Final Stage of the Selection Process	p. 136
Implementing GIS	p. 139
Staff Training	p. 139
Data Capture and/or Conversion	p. 141
Defining the KPIs (Goalposts) for Successful Implementation	p. 143
Implementing and 'Setting to Work' of the GIS	p. 143
Undertaking a Post Implementation Review	p. 144
Benchmarking	p. 144
Summary	p. 145
The Best and the Worst	p. 147
And the Best is...Google Earth	p. 147
And the Best is (also)...Web 2.0	p. 148
And the Worst is...	p. 149
Closing Remarks	p. 151
Glossary	p. 153
Index	p. 155
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