I was listening to NPR’s Talk of the Nation a few weeks ago and heard a fascinating discussion with Eric Dezenhall, a crisis management expert, about how companies can successfully navigate crises that threaten their public image (Feb. 4, 2010).
Dezenhall made an excellent point about the position in which organizations find themselves when something goes wrong. He said that the first order of business – and the greatest challenge – is determining how widespread a problem is. Does it affect a single store or an entire region? Is there one unhappy customer or are there hundreds of them? Does the problem affect a single component or an entire product line? And where in the supply chain or manufacturing process did the problem occur?
Without quick, clear answers to these questions, companies have to guess at how best to respond, and sometimes, they guess wrong and never recover. These days, businesses can’t afford to guess; they have to know. 
That’s where “location intelligence” comes in. The context of geospatial data, itself, is nothing new, nor is the idea that this data holds tremendous potential. What is new is that business intelligence technology has finally advanced to the point where geographic-oriented data that already exists in organizations can be effectively accessed, analyzed and acted upon.
I believe without a doubt that location intelligence is the answer to the challenge Dezenhall described and to some of the greatest challenges that businesses face today. An organization that actively studies geospatial data in the context of its business interests is well positioned to answer the questions he posed, not just in response to a public crisis but perhaps to prevent the crisis from ever happening in the first place.
Moving forward, I don’t think companies will have the option of choosing whether or not to embark on a location intelligence initiative. Either they will jump in and start seeing results, or they will stand back and watch others pass them by.
Michael Gonzales, managing partner of DSS42 LLC, an industry research company specializing in strategy and architecture, was quoted in the Q1 issue of Teradata Magazine as saying, “If you’re not at least at the start of a spatial perspective in your data warehouse, then you’re behind. In the next two to three years, it will be difficult to remain competitive without some spatial perspective.”
Time—and competitors—wait for no one. So go ahead and check out that article to start exploring how location intelligence can transform your business.
Darryl
I am a big sports fan, and have watched the Vancouver Olympics Games every chance I get. It energizes me to see the amazing athletes and their families get recognition for their years of
practice and dedication.
Now, while no one will confuse me with an Olympic athlete, Teradata can indeed claim some similarities, as we regularly are named in prestigious awards. Our most recent recognition was being named as one of InformationWeek’s “10 Most Strategic IT Vendors.” One of the truly great aspects of this award was being called out for the customer focus that we all work so hard to achieve every day.
“Marquee customers,” wrote Editor-in-Chief Rob Preston, “attribute much of their success to the competitive intelligence they mine through their ‘partnership’ (and that's the word they use most often) with this leading data warehouse and analytics software vendor.”
Our customers are an ever present key element in our success. Gartner cited our relationships with customers in its announcement of the current Data Warehousing Magic Quadrant. Additionally, British journalist Mark Whitehorn captured Teradata’s customer focus in an article he wrote after attending our customer-led user group conference, named PARTNERS. Top Teradata executives, he wrote, “are walking around the conference, talking to their customers. Get on a conference bus to go to the evening's entertainment and Stephen (CTO Brobst) or Mike Koehler (president and CEO) is likely to get on and sit in any spare seat and talk to the customers who happen to be there. My experience is that this is unheard of in a company with revenues of $1.76 billion (2008).These guys probably don't have a mission statement that talks about customer engagement; they do it instead. Is this behavior admirable? I think so, but the laudability isn't really that important. What is important is that the customers love it and, in return, give their loyalty.”
As the Olympics come to a close, the athletes will return to their homes and bask in their achievement. We at Teradata will keep working with our customers for their success. When they win, we win.
Darryl
