5 Ways Geospatial Data Integration Can Make Companies Better

Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now. –Alan Lakein

We consider incorporating GIS for Data Integration a future-thinking approach and investment because we fully acknowledge that data has been cared for in the telecom industry for well over one hundred years without the aid of GIS. But we do find that businesses get better when they focus on having quality data. Here are 5 ways GIS Data Integration methods are beneficial to telecom companies:

Under One Roof

We recently talked about the benefits of having data pulled together in one spot in our Construction Efficiencies post. When it comes to Data Integration, take everything you have learned about this concept one step further – now the real fun can begin:

More Bang For The Initially Intended Use Buck

Once you’ve brought your data “under one roof”, you can do things you couldn’t easily do before:

Combine legacy information/data with new information. Think about the potential of combining things like:

• Billing records
• Outage reporting
• Prospecting
• Predictive Analysis
• And more

On top of combining the actual business data, you can also factor in, for example, weather data. Is there a correlation between outage data and weather data? Probably. Now that we know this, what steps can we proactively take to minimize risk?

“Predicting” The Future

Data in one place + combining data to derive patterns = often knowing what’s likely going to happen (or not happen). What does this mean in real terms?

• Anticipating issues like outages before they actually occur
• Anticipating potential billing patterns (particularly non-payment) based on economic data in the area
• Anticipating who is still “out there” as a potential customer – more on this below!

“Better” Marketing

If your company uses an email marketing software, you may know that the software is likely built to know who has opened your marketing emails and who has not. Some email marketing software “knows” who clicked links in emails and who shared the emails with friends. The reason this is powerful is that you can send relevant information to people. If you have 100 people you’re communicating with, you can follow up with 50 people one way and 50 people another way based on actions they did or did not take. That’s “better” marketing.

Now let’s look at this in the context of Data Integration. Using data you can determine:

• Who are your existing customers?
• Who do you want as a new customer?
• Where are they?
• What products are available to them? There is nothing worse than offering services that people can’t actually get!
• What programs are available? Monitor the data around subsidies in your service area(s) so you can give qualified potential customers the great news!

With filters like this in place, every dollar spent on marketing goes further because you have narrowed into a data set of mostly people who are likely interested in what you have to offer them.

Acquisition Value

It’s a given that knowing what you have and where you have it with your current customers and infrastructure can help you determine existing and potential value. Now think about if/when an investor comes along interested in acquiring your company. There is value in data. Clean data. Quality data. Forward thinking businesses should always keep the potential for acquisition in mind and plan accordingly. Data Integration is a powerful way to stay a step ahead of the competition.