Why does Location Analytics give you a competitive advantage?

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Table of contents

Executive Summary Page 3

The Power of the Map Page 3

Meshing Geographical Data Sources Page 4

Ensuring a High Return on Investment Page 4

Introduction Page 6

Business Scenario Page 6

The Start of Something New Page 7

Conclusion Page 11

Additional References Page 12

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Why does Location Analytics give you a competitive advantage?

Executive summary

Location analytics extends your data past customer profiles and

preferences to understanding trends and patterns on a global scale. Its

ability to fill in an organization’s analytical blind spot is making it a hot

topic in big data.

This white paper contains statistics on the usage of location analytics

and its advantages. Strong contenders in the location analytics space

are highlighted, including Esri®, MicroStrategy, and GREBIT Solutions. A

customer use case is presented at the end to highlight the strengths of

location services and associated technologies and services within the

insurance industry.

In a recent surveyi of executives familiar with location services, over 50%

of respondents have or are planning to implement a solution in their

business analytics platform. This is in line with IT’s beliefs – 80% believe

that adding a “Geographic Representation” to business intelligence (BI)

deployments will result in higher adoption rates among business users

of BI tools.

The Power of the Map

Location analytics isn’t limited to a specific industry or business function.

Executives and management immediately realize its value – better

business insight and faster decision-making. For IT, location analytics is the

missing link between data stored in different locations. Location analytics

can provide a truly 360° view of business.

Business is driven by results, and location analytics accelerate an executive

and his team’s ability to make decisions. This easy example helps you see

the power of maps. Compare customer data from a retail chain using the

table in Figure 1 and the map in Figure 2.

Figure 1

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Maps are much more intuitive, allowing you to develop actionable insights.

You can identify little more than customers and their addresses from the

table. But with the map, it’s obvious that customers are (1) concentrated in

specific areas and (2) live along the coast.

Meshing Geographical Data Sources

Location analytics allows you to solve the biggest data challenge

organizations face – combining data from different sources. Eighty percent

of your organization’s data has a location component. A location analytics

solution is a quick win since it bridges the gap between data gathered

from all your different departments and customer touch points.

The alternative to location analytics is physically combining data and

analyses, which wastes time and business cycles. These results are outdated

and prone to human error. Insights that would have been made obvious

by location analytics tools are entirely missed. Developing these insights

allow you to capture new opportunities and help your organization grow.

Ensuring a High Return on Investment

Seventy-five percent of customers are confident that location analytics

vendors can provide innovative technologies that can ensure a high

return on investmenti. Esri, MicroStrategy, and GREBIT are best-of-breed

solutions for geospatial analysis, business intelligence, and integration

services, respectively. This winning combination provides a uniquely

powerful solution.

Key factors in developing and executing a location analytics strategy:

• Obtain buy in from the key influencers in the company, without their

leadership you will not be able to deliver the key technological benefits.

• Make sure you have knowledgeable staff that can help you realize

this vision. If not, procure external assistance.

• Review which area of your business can quickly benefit from this

technology and start there. Don’t take this on as a large project,

but instead deliver incremental value in an agile fashion for a quick

win. From that point, momentum will increase and users will likely

become your champions promoting the benefits of the solution.

• Don’t create complex dashboards – create the solution to a problem,

don’t be the problem!

Figure 2

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If you build it, they will use it!

MicroStrategy and Esri have come together to push the boundaries

of location analytics. Esri® Maps for MicroStrategy is intuitive and

sophisticated. When a tool is easy to implement and use, it results in a

higher adoption rate.

With Esri Maps for MicroStrategy, you can be up and running in less

than an hour. Existing dashboards can be map-enabled, allowing you to

perform rich geo-analysis to solve any challenge.

Esri Maps for MicroStrategy allows you to combine all your data to

discover correlations based on comprehensive information. Statistics

show that more than a third of companies that use location analytics

have been able to combine all customer data. Of this, 74% of the data

is unstructuredi. Unstructured data is irregular and ambiguous, making

it the most difficult type of data for traditional analytics tools to handle.

Unstructured data comes from a wide range of sources and can include

anything from demographic data to weather patterns. Esri Maps for

MicroStrategy provides a holistic view of your business by allowing you to

combine data stored anywhere.

Esri Maps for MicroStrategy can help you draw different correlations and

come to new conclusions. In business-to-consumer scenarios, this could

mean identifying buying patterns by drawing correlations between an

areas average income per family, number of children per household,

highest education attained, or crime rates. This type of analysis helps you

develop a deeper understanding of current and potential customers, so

you are better able to tailor your products and offerings.

Taking Esri Maps for MicroStrategy to the Next Level

Esri Maps’ ArcGIS® platform provides tools for creating and sharing maps

with the rest of your organization. Your investment in location analytics

can extend to your partners and customers with the addition of ArcGISSM

Online. Using ArcGIS Online in conjunction with MicroStrategy lets you

create interactive maps containing rich analytics and share them with

internal or external users for consumption or collaboration. For the first

time, location analytics are available at a low cost to users of all levels.

Another powerful feature of ArcGIS is story maps. Users can create or

tell a story with intuitive, vibrant story maps. An intuitive interface and

templates make it easy to get started with ArcGIS.

Figure 3: Before and After Map

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Organizations that have used ArcGIS Online understand that it drives

internal and external collaboration. It’s intuitive and versatile. Some

organizations have even made it a part of their marketing strategy. Visit

the links below to learn more about how organizations are using ArcGIS.

La Capitale, a Canadian insurance provider, was impressed by MicroStrategy

and Esri’s offerings. The following is a use case containing the solutions

GREBIT developed in response to the business scenario they presented us.

La Capitale Use Case : Introduction

At the heart of the insurance industry is risk management. All risks,

especially from natural disasters, are monitored closely. One way risk is

monitored is through “Risk Analysis by Area.” To mitigate their own risk,

companies insure a predetermined number of policies within a given area

and product. In real estate, management determines a number of units

they can insure in a development that is within their level of risk tolerance.

Since fires spread more quickly in a condominium complex compared to

a suburban housing development, management might set a lower risk

tolerance. The same idea can be applied to houses in flood zones versus

more inland areas. All of this data has to be managed and made available

to management to monitor and determine risk tolerance.

Business Scenario : Testimonial from La Capitale

Guy Bourassa, Director of Business Intelligence, said, "Esri Maps for

MicroStrategy was truly a Location Analytics Solution we have to seriously

consider implementing within our entire organization."

About La Capitale

A subsidiary of La Capitale Civil Service Mutual, La Capitale General

Insurance is experiencing impressive growth and as a result, is now one

of the leading property and casualty insurers in Quebec. Renowned for

its innovative products and excellent customer service, it also owns other

insurance companies, including L’Unique General Insurance in Quebec

and Unica Insurance in Ontario. It employs over 1,000 individuals and

generates some $743.5 million in written premiums.

About GREBIT Solutions

GREBIT has been at the forefront of Esri Location Analytics, having helped

with product design, testing, training, and solution delivery. Since the

inception of the Esri Maps For product suite, they have served as trusted

advisors and key contributors to its’ success. GREBIT has a strong reputation

for adopting a partner-based approach with its’ clients by developing a

vested interest in their client’s objectives. They are building on their years

of experience in the software and services industry and reputation as a

visionary in the location analytics space.

Esri Location Analytics

Organizations implement Location Analytics by adding the Esri Location

Platform to their IT infrastructure. The Location Platform provides simple

Figure 4: Comparison Maps Figure 5: Time Map

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to use, dynamic mapping capabilities to any business system, including

business intelligence (BI), customer relationship management (CRM),

enterprise resource planning (ERP), and everyday productivity tools, such

as Microsoft Office. With Esri Location Analytics, organizations can analyze

all their location data to gain greater insight, make better decisions, and,

ultimately improve business outcomes.

The Start of Something New

La Capitale needed a “Risk Analysis by Area” dashboard accessible by

everyone from executives at the office to brokers in field. The key criteria

consisted of the ability to:

• Filter and select based on a map prompt.

• Analyze risk based on localization areas, pre-defined and ad-hoc.

• Click on an address and zoom in to a street view of the policy to

confirm actual location.

As you will see in the following solutions, GREBIT combines advanced

MicroStrategy and Esri offerings to deliver La Capitale’s key criteria. GREBIT

went beyond personal computing to showing La Capitale the possibilities,

Solution 1a: Concentration by City

This dashboard contains a larger and smaller map (refer to Figure 6). They

display the following information:

• The large map shows Risk Concentration by City. Color denotes risk

level, with red indicating high-risk areas.

• The small map displays the number of policies in each area. The larger

the cluster, the more number of policies.

Solution 1b: Concentration by Region (i.e. Forward Sortation Area

(FSA) or Dissemination Area)

The city layer from Solution 1a turns into the FSA layer when you zoom into

the map (refer to Figure 7). The map reads the same and you can interact

with the map by filtering the visualizations to the right based on your

selection of an FSA to the left. This functionality lets users drill into specific

areas to develop a deeper understanding of a particular region.

Solution 1c: Concentration by Address

Zooming in again yields information on individual policies (refer to Figure 8).

Here, individual policies appear based on their Total Insured Value.

Figure 6

Figure 7

Figure 8

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Solution 2: Concentration by Address

From the drop down menu in the upper right hand corner of the large

map, you can understand how policy counts break down by Product Type

(i.e. Condo, Home, X-Plex, Tenant, others). (refer to Figure 9)

Solution 3: Concentration using Heat Maps

Heat map visualizations show the number of policies in a given area.

The darker purple shades indicate a higher concentration of policies

(refer to Figure 10).

Solution 4: Filter by Product Offerings and City

Selecting specific product offerings and cities from the bottom right menu

updates the map with your selections (refer to Figure 11).

Solution 5: Filter by Company

Analyze a specific company by selecting it from a list. The map zooms so

you can understand the insurance policy in detail – insurance description,

number of policies, the total insured value, and more (refer to figure 12).

Solution 6: Zoom into an Arial View

To ensure consistency, you can see if the address and policy match.

GREBIT’s built-in customer plugin lets you click on any point within the

map from Figure 13, bringing up its aerial view similar to in Figure 14 (refer

to Figures on page 9).

Solution 7a: Adding Data from Other Sources

Data from external sources, such as weather or traffic data, allows you to

anticipate and be better prepared for business scenarios. A lasso selector

tool lets users highlight an area of interest (refer to Figure 15 on page 10). The

visualizations to the right will filter based on your selections (refer to Figure

16 on page 10). From these maps, you can begin to understand how heavy

flooding in downtown Toronto might mean for you.

Solution 7b: Adding Data from Other Sources

Weather patterns play a key role in the Insurance Claims division. This map

lets you combine past and current weather patterns for more advanced

and predictive analytics (refer to Figure 17). You can calculate exposure risk

and anticipate potential insurance claims.

Figure 9 Figure 10

Figure 11 Figure 12

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Figure 13

Figure 14

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Figure 15

Figure 16

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Solution 8: GREBIT’s iPad solution provides Esri Maps using

MicroStrategy Mobile

Customers see the value of increasing mobility in their organizations. GREBIT

deployed Esri’s extensible Location Platform using MicroStrategy Mobile.

MicroStrategy Mobile, the leader in mobile analytics, is quick to develop

and easy to maintain. The combination of the two technologies ensured

customers could immediately leverage Esri Maps on their iPad. The following

series show how GREBIT was able to help customers increase business

process efficiency.

Solution 8a: Cluster by Insured Value

Starting with a simple map, you can see where insured properties are

clustered (refer to Figure 18). Selecting a location on the map updates the Top

Organizations by Insured Value bar chart and Total Insured Value amount

below. This workflow allows you to hone in on key areas and policies to

identify your most important accounts.

Solution 8b: Clusters by Type

Building on Solution 8a, you can see insured properties broken down

by the type of product. This allows you to see what type of product

is popular in your accounts. The red on this map indicates a large presence

in homeowners insurance (refer to Figure 19). On-the-fly demographics,

such as household income data, are available in a pop-up window. This

data can help sales and marketing identify growth opportunities and

develop targeted marketing.

Solution 8c: Cluster by Type and Combine Data from Other Sources

Adding population density and bathymetry layers to the map from Solution

8b helps with drawing insightful correlations. You can see that your policies

are concentrated in dense population areas and decide (refer to Figure 20 on

page 12). From there, you can determine whether you have reached your

maximum risk tolerance level in a particular area.

Conclusion

Esri Maps and MicroStrategy offer the best visual reporting solution for

La Capitale’s risk management analysis. Because Esri is available out-of-

the-box for MicroStrategy, and offers an easy pathway to upgrading to

Esri Maps for MicroStrategy and Esri Maps’ ArcGIS platform, additional

data sets such as weather, demographics, and other enrichment data can

easily beintegrated, providing a much more granular view of a given geo.

Figure 17

Figure 18

Figure 19

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Additional References

Esri Maps for MicroStrategy

www.esri.com/software/location-analytics/esri-maps-for-microstrategy

More case studies from GREBIT

www.grebitsolutions.com

MicroStrategy Analytics Platform

www.microstrategy.com

i Ventana Research Location Analytics Benchmark Research, 2013

Figure 20

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Patent InformationThis product is patented. One or more of the following patents may apply to the product sold herein: U.S. Patent Nos. 6,154,766, 6,173,310, 6,260,050, 6,263,051, 6,269,393, 6,279,033, 6,400,265, 6,567,796, 6,587,547, 6,606,596, 6,658,093, 6,658,432, 6,661,340, 6,662,195, 6,671,715, 6,691,100, 6,694,316, 6,697,808, 6,704,723, 6,741,980, 6,765,997, 6,768,788, 6,772,137, 6,788,768, 6,798,867, 6,801,910, 6,820,073, 6,829,334, 6,836,537, 6,850,603, 6,859,798, 6,873,693, 6,885,734, 6,940,953, 6,964,012, 6,977,992, 6,996,568, 6,996,569, 7,003,512, 7,010,518, 7,016,480, 7,020,251, 7,039,165, 7,082,422, 7,113,993, 7,127,403, 7,174,349, 7,181,417, 7,194,457, 7,197,461, 7,228,303, 7,260,577, 7,266,181, 7,272,212, 7,302,639, 7,324,942, 7,330,847, 7,340,040, 7,356,758, 7,356,840, 7,415,438, 7,428,302, 7,430,562, 7,440,898, 7,486,780, 7,509,671, 7,516,181, 7,559,048, 7,574,376, 7,617,201, 7,725,811, 7,801,967, 7,836,178, 7,861,161, 7,861,253, 7,881,443, 7,925,616, 7,945,584, 7,970,782, 8,005,870, 8,051,168, 8,051,369, 8,094,788, 8,130,918, 8,296,287, 8,321,411, 8,452,755, 8,521,733, and 8,522,192. Other patent applications are pending.