ESRI Business GeoInfo Summit

2005 ESRI Business GeoInfo Summit Papers and Sessions

The 2005 ESRI Business GeoInfo Summit user papers is a compilation of professional papers delivered on April 18–19, 2005, in Chicago, Illinois. ESRI users contributed a fundamental part to the conference by submitting and presenting their papers on a diverse collection of GIS applications. The proceeds promote GIS application by stimulating users to share their experiences and knowledge.

In addition we are also providing the sessions that were presented at the summit by ESRI staff as well as the plenary session presentations.
Note: Not all sessions will be available.

Plenary Presentations

ESRI Keynote: ESRI Means Business [PDF-10.9 MB]
Dave Busser, Director, Corporate & Business Development, ESRI
ESRI Technology and Solutions [PDF-5.39 MB]
Steve Benner, Director of Strategic Accounts & Dave Wrazien, Solution Architect, ESRI
Managing Corporate Resources Spatially for Better Business Decisions [PDF-15.5 MB]
Gregory Slutz, GIS/Remote Sensing Team Leader, ChevronTexaco Energy Technology Company

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ESRI Sessions

Introducing ArcGIS 9 Business Analyst

View presentation[PDF-3.73 MB]

Presenter(s): Garry Burgess and David Huffman, ESRI
This session will demonstrate new features and capabilities of the upcoming version of the ArcGIS Business Analyst extension. This session will focus on “what’s new” and demonstrate, using real case studies, applications that help businesses make decisions. Attendees will learn how to take advantage of the ArcGIS 9 environment including ModelBuilder.

Enterprise Solutions by ESRI

View presentation[PDF-3.33 MB]

Presenter(s): Dave Wrazien, ESRI
ESRI offers a complete suite of GIS technologies designed to spatially enable your business enterprise. This session will provide an overview ESRI's ArcGIS platform: its associative products, deployment options, and integration capabilities into core IT. Particular attention will be directed towards server-side deployments and integration with other Enterprise Information Systems. Examples will includes spatially enabled Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, Customer Information Systems (CIS), and Logistics/Routing Solutions.

ArcWeb Services: On-Demand GIS for Business

View presentation[PDF-1.72 MB]

Presenter(s): Mike Tait, ESRI
ArcWeb Services is ESRI’s On-Demand GIS web services product that delivers GIS data, functionality and solutions on-demand to businesses around the globe 24x7. This session will present ArcWeb Services what it is and how businesses are using ArcWeb to support business processes like mobile work force management, facility locating and management, event notification and mapping, asset tracking, business site location analysis, as well as, enterprise GIS as a managed service.

ArcGIS Routing and Logistics Solutions

View presentation[PDF-1.59 MB]

Presenter(s): Jim McKinney, ESRI
This session will discuss the capability of the ArcGIS 9.1 Network Analyst extension and how it can be used to support routing and logistics. Network Analyst provides desktop, server and developer environments for calculating vehicle routes, generating service areas, identifying closest facilities, and performing other network analyses. Analysis is performed on the new ArcGIS network dataset, which provides a rich connectivity and navigation attribute model for transportation networks. Case studies and examples of routing and logistics solutions built using ArcGIS will also be presented.

ArcLogistics Route: Logistics for Your Fleet or Force

View presentation[PDF-1.37 MB]

Presenter(s): Jim McKinney, ESRI
This session will present an overview and demonstration of ArcLogistics™ Route. ArcLogistics Route is a stand-alone end use application designed to solve vehicle routing and scheduling problems, enabling users to create and manage sets of routes for their fleets of vehicles. ArcLogistics Route builds routes based on actual network drive times; vehicle characteristics, such as start and end locations, volume and weight capacity, and specialty of vehicle or driver; and characteristics of customer orders such as volume and weight of item, service time, requested time window, and order specialty.

Using ArcLogistics Route, customer orders can be imported from industry-standard databases. ArcLogistics Route will then find customer addresses on the map, assign customers to vehicles, and determine optimal stop sequences that minimize cost and honor time windows. ArcLogistics Route will generate route summary reports, stop vicinity and route overview maps, street-level directions, and driver manifests. After solving the routing problem, users can export routes and schedules back to their databases.

Professional Papers

Business Intelligence I

Link Between ESRI’s ArcIMS and the SAS Data Warehouse: Presenter(s): Peter Høg Gerlich, Informi GIS
The Know Your Local Area Web site in Aalborg County, Denmark, is a link between ESRI’s ArcIMS and the SAS data warehouse. Statistical data combined with spatial data is an unsurpassed alternative when business decisions have to be made or complex relations are to be visualized to politicians and citizens. This Web site shows how statistical data created in SAS, combined with advanced GIS tools from ESRI, can be presented on the Web.
ArcIntelligence—Spatially Enabled Business Intelligence: Presenter(s): Yuvraj Mathur and Vikas Srivastava, CyberTech Systems Inc.
Enterprises have been making increasing use of business intelligence for better business decisions. Decision making can be strengthened by incorporating GIS methods and techniques into the Business Intelligence.

This paper highlights the process and benefits of integrating Business Intelligence with GIS. At one of the projects implemented by CyberTech, integration between Business Intelligence system and GIS facilitated the display of BI query results on a map and vice versa. The query could be refined further to get more granular details using spatial information. This integration helped users understand interrelationships between various data sets available and how they are affected by changing geographic patterns. Users were able to query in BI, get results on a map, refine selection on the map and see modified results in BI. This resulted in increased productivity and better decisions.

Spatially enabled BI systems can incorporate internal and external geographic data for analysis with respect to various demographic and other geographic patterns.
Successful Integration of Business Intelligence and GIS: Presenter(s): James Akright, General Motors PowerTrain
Discussion will focus on issues that have been addressed through the use of Microstrategy business intelligence tools and ESRI's Geographic Information Systems. The ability to use the mining and reporting capabilities of the Microstrategy tools integrated with the visualization and analysis capabilities of the ESRI applications have provided General Motors with insights that would have taken many more resources to discover. Data from both internal and external sources has been combined to provide new views of GM's business. The success of the project has spawned additional projects that include Fleet Management and additional data sources.

Business Intelligence II

Geographic Dimension in Data Mining: Presenter(s): Dr. Konrad Dramowicz, COGS
Both GIS and data mining can be seen as a technology or science. There are numerous areas where GIS and data mining are overlapping. The integration of GIS with data mining will benefit both data mining and GIS. The major components of GIS, such as data input, data manipulation/analysis, and data output correspond to the major steps in data mining methodology such as problem understanding, data pre-processing, modeling, evaluation, and deployment. In each of these steps, data mining can benefit from using GIS. For example, in data pre-processing such enhancements can be implemented as spatial referencing, geocoding, and building topological relationships among objects. Numerous spatial analysis tools could also be beneficial for modeling in data mining. Finally, mapping tools are invaluable in the deployment phase. The paper also focuses on benefits that data mining can bring to GIS, including the use of predictive models, rule-based models, or clustering.
GIS and BI Dashboards: Presenter(s): Andy Meehan and Peter Rossiter, Integeo
Learn how BI dashboards integrated with GIS provide new opportunities to visualize data and perform spatial ad-hoc query and analysis. Integeo’s MapIntelligence® creates interactive mapping applications in real time based on information sent from business dashboards, and was selected by Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA) for assessment and monitoring of fishery impacts on fish stocks and the marine environment in which the vessels operate. The toolset provides the expert analysts in AFMA with the ability to provide their customers with data in a format that they can now analyse further in their own time in both a BI and spatial context, and present data in a dashboard format with minimal additional skill development.
Value Multiplier: Enhancing GIS with Business Objects XI Reporting, Analysis and Dashboards: Presenter(s): Cam Davie, Sr., OEM and Alliances, Business Objects
What happens when solving the problem requires more information than you can display on the map? Attend this exciting, action-packed session and, in minutes, discover how to create powerful, interactive analytical reports that can access any data, and filter it through your maps. Explore the power of integrating ESRI ArcIMS with Business Objects' world-class reporting, analysis and dashboard suite.

Learn how a municipal government, wrestling with planning and land usage questions, uses tightly integrated reporting and analysis to help explain their maps. Reports will be created from scratch, linked to maps, and linked back again to other reports. We will also show how to snapshot maps inside reports, distribute and archive them. Finally, we'll tie together all the pieces into an attractive, decision-makers dashboard. Fasten your seatbelts. We're going to make your ESRI implementation fly.

Enterprise Integration

Beginning an Enterprise GIS with Web Services: Presenter(s): Vikas Srivastava, CyberTech Systems and Software Inc.
Web Services offering GIS data and functionality offer a new way of implementing GIS within an organization. The intent of this presentation is to walk through a proof-of-concept SAP-ArcWeb Service integration that CyberTech had done. The integration was done mainly to study the type of GIS functionality that could be made available to a SAP user and to determine the time and effort involved.

The intent of the presentation is to highlight the benefit of adding geographic analysis into an organization’s decision support process and ease in incorporating geographic content through web based GIS services.

GIS web services provide an easy, efficient, and effective way of adding geographic analysis to an organization’s decision making process without actually setting up a GIS infrastructure. Web services can also be used to jump start an organization’s enterprise GIS implementation and more functionality can be added once the effectiveness of GIS has been demonstrated.

GIS Management

Five Keys to Better Data Management and Workflow: Presenter(s): Susan Zwillinger, Thinformation, Inc.
Many companies face challenges in storing and managing business data for use in multiuser, multidepartment ArcGIS projects. Is there anything you can do to improve the efficiency of creating, storing, and accessing files; backing up project data; and keeping temporary data from needlessly cluttering and devouring computer storage space? Of course, there are procedural rules that one can implement that direct users to store files in a specific directory, but these rules can be either too constraining to user productivity or easily avoided by careless users. This presentation will discuss five keys to improving ArcGIS work processes and file management using application environment variables, directory templates, project (document) templates, data design strategies, and metadata. Project examples will describe a small real estate development company and a large service retail business.
Presentation Strategies for Marketing and Selling Your GIS Project: Presenter(s): Wayne Kocina, Summit Presentations
Selling and marketing your GIS project, research, or analysis to non-GIS savvy managers and executives can be a real challenge. Technology provides us with effective tools and methods for conveying this highly technical information to others. The key is in how to use these tools to enhance and support the message and not detract from it.

This presentation will introduce the audience to the communications tools that are available today and discuss effective methods and strategies for using these tools to convince managers and executives of the value of your project and work. Examples of how these strategies were employed in obtaining funding for small-and-large budget GIS projects will be discussed and demonstrated. By the end of this presentation, you will know which communications tools are available to you and how you can use them to sell your GIS concepts.

Marketing I

Doing Market Focused Selling at The Arizona Republic: Presenter(s): Jay Visnansky, The Arizona Republic
Market Focused II (MF II) is an intranet based presentation and sales tool. It automatically establishes the account trade area, identifies available distribution options, and places the order for The Arizona Republic’s advertising sales team. It also helps advertisers make more cost-effective direct marketing buying decisions, leading to more advertising revenue.

The Arizona Republic’s sales representatives can create custom solutions at the zone, zip, carrier route, and/or address level based on geographic and/or demographic targets. MF II can propose solutions incorporating in-paper insertion or shared mail. Once sold, the order is sent electronically to the advertising Sales And Order Entry (SAOE) system and to the Circulation system.

The MF II web configuration includes an ArcIMS mapping engine for accessing Geographical Information System (GIS) maps. A spatial database engine (SDE) stores maps layers such as streets, etc. with The Arizona Republic’s carrier routes and subscriber/non-subscriber layer information.

Marketing III

Dispatch GIS Evolution—From Savings to Savvy to Sales: Presenter(s): Gwen Brown, On Target Marketing
This presentation documents the GIS role in The Dispatch Printing Company (The Columbus Dispatch and its affiliates) from 1992-present.

Role grew from Marketing Department's point and thematic mapping to an analysis tool for marketing/editorial stories, and to a core driver for both sales and operations for our direct marketing affiliate, On Target Marketing.

This presentation will also discuss the initiation of an enterprisewide GIS user group and its benefits.
Using a Grid for Service Market Hot Spots: Presenter(s): Susan Zwillinger, Thinformation, Inc.
When entering a new service market (such as a car wash business), the first level analysis should show “hot spots” of customer potential and site potential. Using a custom tool for ArcGIS, a grid is created for a metro area or county. Potential customers may be defined by the number of total employees (daytime population), residential population, a target age group, or a vehicle count. For a more conservative estimate, we multiply the customer base by the percentage of people who are do-it-for-me (DIFM) customers. The block group data is then summarized at the grid level and a count of competitors (existing car wash locations) is assigned to each grid. A grid map shows the general market opportunity in terms of the number of potential customers per location. The presentation will describe the methodology and project results of this grid analysis.

Modeling

Estimating Sales and Market Shares: Presenter(s): Dr. David Huff, University of Texas-Austin
The session is divided into two distinct but integrated parts. Part I is a relatively non-technical discussion of how you can determine the relative importance of different variables in predicting retail sales and how to assess the economic consequences of various location decisions. The presentation uses a case study to exemplify the use of the various techniques and concepts.

Presenter(s): Dr. Tony Lea, Environics Analytics
Part II focuses on actual empirical studies undertaken for various businesses that highlight use of the analytical measures presented in the first part of the session.

ROI/Logistics

Profiting from a Mobile Workforce GIS: Presenter(s): Steve Jones, Sears, Roebuck and Co. Geographic information systems are used in many ways at Sears, Roebuck and Company. Sears has more than 10 years of experience in GIS usage in in-home product repairs, delivery, warehousing, and marketing. They are industry leaders in using GIS for routing and in-vehicle navigation and now use a GIS for workforce capacity management. Their largest endeavor is managing a mobile, 10,000- technician mobile repair workforce with the assistance of three of their geographic information systems. This presentation will explain the components of profitability from using a GIS that can be of assistance in determining project ROI in a mobile workforce environment. The presentation will explore vehicle savings, productivity enhancements, and support savings from using a GIS. Real-world savings and improvements obtained by Sears will also be discussed.

Site Location II

Desktop Wireless Design Merged With ArcView and Business Analyst: Presenter(s): Joseph Kelly, EcoDigital Development Group
Desktop wireless RF design tools, such as EDX® Signal Pro 5.x®, are used to design networks and determine coverage areas for specific frequencies and power levels. The ability to export modeled coverage areas as a shapefile allows them to be imported into ESRI products such as ArcView 9.x or ArcView 8.x and Business Analyst. Those interested in matching marketing and sales efforts in correlation with potential geographic coverage areas now have the means to marry wireless design with wireless sales and marketing. ESRI Business Analyst, an extension of ArcView 9.x, and associated data provide mapping, demographic, and geocoding capabilities that can be utilized to analyze potential customers and obtain addresses for marketing and sales correspondence. ArcView 9.x or ArcView 3.x can be used to produce maps for publishing propagation models and expected geographic coverage.
Dirt Kickers & Analysts—Site Location Perspectives: Presenter(s): Steve Lackow, RPM
One of the most important challenges of site selection is integrating everything that is known about a site and location to support decision-making. This involves what analysts know based on the data they collect remotely, and what the "dirt kickers" who are actually in the field know. And it has ramifications for corporate culture and organizational development, as well as being a classic GIS issue. In this presentation, we will explore a case study in how the perspectives of the analysts and the dirt kickers were integrated using ArcGIS, ArcPad and the ArcView Business Analyst -- and how the analyst correctly predicted the presence of very specific site problems causing poor business performance without ever having seen or visited the site.