GIS Playing A Big Role in Business Education

Fastly, businesses are turning to (GIS) to develop new markets, overcome supply chain problems, predict growth, Good and the efficiency of routes and services, gain a competitive edge and suggest future strategies. And lately, colleges have been taking note.

From Pennsylvania State University to the University of Redlands in California, the academic world is beginning to recognize the need to develop GIS skills through undergraduate and MBA-level courses. From Pennsylvania State University to the University of Redlands in California, the academic world is beginning to recognize the need to develop GIS skills through undergraduate and MBA-level courses.

Recognizing the authority of a modern GIS to reveal real-time vision or global trends on easy-to-understand maps and visualizations, the University of California Riverside, University of Wisconsin-Stout, Murray State University, and Pace University also have begun GIS courses in their curricula. They see the importance of GIS rising, especially as the Internet of Things continues to expand, sending out streams of data that can be used for business decisions.

Thomas Horan, who is the dean of the School of Business at the University of Redlands, sees GIS taking on increasing emphasis not only in business, but also in natural sciences, environmental sciences, social sciences, humanities, design and community service projects. The Redlands approach recognizes the power of location intelligence to analyze up-to-the-minute data in hundreds of layers of information and then plot relationships between that data and locations in easily accessible electronic maps.

Because the results of properly managed GIS can shift the perspectives of corporate leaders and the direction of their businesses, Horan terms the managers of such systems as “spatial transformers.” In a recent article, he asks: “Are businesses—and the twenty-first century leaders we are training in business schools—prepared to harness the power of spatial data? In other words, on a national and international scale, are we properly educating spatial business leaders, and are businesses recognizing the worth of these future leaders?”

And as the university points out, 80 percent of all business data contains geographic information, so GIS provides a way to utilize that spatial information to serve the goals of a company or organization. The University of Redlands, which has a professional partnership with Esri, recently completed a survey of businesses to assess the importance companies attach to location intelligence in various sectors.

It found that:

·         86 percent of companies surveyed report substantial use of GIS in more than one department.

·         About 40 to 50 percent of businesses expect high usage of GIS during the next three years.

·         High usage includes business research and development, sales, marketing, and operations.

Among the reasons cited when GIS is underused are budget considerations, a company culture that resists change, lack of support in the C-Suite, lack of clear goals for research or an absence of sponsors who can explain the capabilities of GIS to others throughout the company.

Of course, those are some of the very things colleges are hoping to change. GIS skills may not be a prerequisite for occupying the C-suite today, but they are increasingly acknowledged as critical to success and growth. As with so many things happening in the fast-changing digital world, a trend that gains momentum can soon become an accepted core practice.

It’s not far-fetched to imagine a business world in the near future where a CEO or CMO, who doesn’t understand or cannot use the basics of GIS, will be as rare as business leaders from the 1980s and 1990s who did not see the need to learn to use a personal computer and could not envision the vast, untapped possibilities looming on the horizon.

Marianna Kantor is the chief marketing officer at Esri, the world’s sixth largest privately held software company. Founded in 1969 and headquartered in Redlands, California, Esri is widely recognized as the technical and market leader in geographic information systems, or GI.

To learn more about Esri, visit esri.com. 

GIS software can easily be incorporated into C-level software such as dashboards and control panels.ESRI