Geoanalytic platforms and big data solutions: Investing in smart cities

Geospatial information systems (GIS) have been around since the early 1960s, helping to solve real world problems and gaining social recognition since the first commercial GIS product was developed in 1981. Since then, GIS has continued to evolve and provide thousands of organisations the ability to create their own digital maps and layers, to solve individual problems, reveal trends and relationships about pretty much everything.

“GIS is about uncovering meaning and insights from within data. It is rapidly evolving and providing a whole new framework and process for understanding.” Jack Dangermond, CEO, Esri.

As most organisations will be aware, crowdsourcing and GIS go hand-in-hand, and getting hold of third-party data to develop geospatial applications can be time consuming and expensive. In a world of digital transformation, IOT and smart cities, communities are crying out for a better use of data. To help drive, build and facilitate growing local communities and resources it’s vital to stay better connected within our day-to-day lives.  

Some of the most promising areas in which we are seeing crowdsourced, big data solutions and platforms gain recognition is within the retail space and smart city initiatives. Having the capability to report on where potential customer footfall is occurring, number of tourists per year or highlight where certain problem areas might develop is incredibly important and can help determine where new hotel developments, corporate office space or hospitals might be identified and developed.

In essence, how organisations go about collecting that data and aligning it with the consumer needs and specific use cases is key to digital growth. Understanding people’s behaviour in a data-driven world can positively influence and impact business decisions and smart city planning.  

Metricell can help you realise that potential by providing a fast, flexible and fully automated platform which allows for a controlled and reliable ecosystem of in-house crowdsourced data. Our Aptus capability is simple to integrate, privacy compliant and creates instant value and the opportunity to target new revenue streams and growth in the areas you need it most.