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