GIS benefiting an organization Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

GIS benefiting an organization - Research Paper Example cause of the nature of the environment of their operation, firms in the private sector are less forthcoming with information regarding the technological systems they employ. This is because they fear competition from other firms. Many companies believe that sharing their technological information may lose competitive advantage that puts them in a good position of competing as compared to their competitors. This paper offers a case study of how companies have integrated GIS technology with the aim of improving their business strategies and decision-making processes. GIS is usually utilized by various industries such as real estate, marketing, transportation/logistics, insurance, and financial services. First and foremost, it is noteworthy to provide a description of the infrastructure of the GIS and how these components interact in business setting (Pick, 2008). There are four major GIS components namely: Hardware, Software, Dada, Procedure and People. Hardware is the component essential for collecting, storing, and producing geographic information such as servers, printers, personal computers among other peripheral devices. The technological transformation has helped many organizations implement GIS to help them access more information in an accurate manner. Software is the operating system utilized by organizations, imaging, data management, and other components essential for data collection and analysis. This software is usually user-friendly to ensure that many people do not have difficulty learning about how to use some specific functions. Data is simply a collection of facts stored in what is referred to as database. It can either be spatial or tabular; however, depending on the form of data, it offers different benefits to an organization. Procedures are the techniques or approaches used in GIS to manipulate or analyze spatial data in improving business decision-making processes. Lastly, people must be trained to handle software, hardware and data stored