WHITE PAPER

BRINGING LOCATION
INTELLIGENCE TO BUSINESS
SUMMARY

Our concept of ​
place​
is becoming more fluid and layered as digital
information overlays and enriches the physical world. The reams of
digital data generated by our daily lives can tell new location-based
stories and offer rich context and insights. The new business
intelligence ​
i s​
location intelligence, harnessing the power of place to
drive analysis and insights affecting the bottom line.

Big data, mobile, social media, and cloud computing are more than
technology trends, they are the future of business intelligence. In
this paper, you will learn how real companies across a range of
categories including finance, real estate, economic development and
operational logistics are making use of location intelligence
technology to gain a competitive edge in the marketplace.
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Location Intelligence—a new Mode of Analysis

Location Drives Development

Big Data, Companies and Customers

Business Intelligence for Finance

Data Opportunities and Challenges

Location for Operational Logistics

Spatial Data to Maps in Minutes

Implement CARTO for Enterprise

Conclusion
LOCATION INTELLIGENCE - A NEW MODE OF
ANALYSIS

Location intelligence is an often-heard phrase in technology circles,

but what it means and how it can transform business is not
immediately apparent. Location intelligence is not just another word
for geographic information system (GIS). Location intelligence is
more than spatial analytics or GIS alone, it is the capability to
visualize spatial data to identify and analyze relationships. In
addition to the ​
where​
, it also identifies the ​
what​
,​
who​
and ​
when​
.
Evolving from GIS, location intelligence provides analytic and
operational solutions across organizations. The new location
intelligence software provides user-friendly visualization, analysis
and insights accessible and consumable at all levels of commerce.

Primacy of location as a mode of analysis comes at a time of

evolving conceptions of place. GIS is no longer a niche market
serving government, land management agencies and geographers
with an emphasis on managing maps. Location intelligence is not
only the exclusive territory of experts and specialists. Now, anyone
can access and share data analysis across departments, markets
and industries. Analysis is no longer secluded in isolated
departments—now it can be combined and shared
interdepartmentally. Companies and entrepreneurs are looking
beyond traditional borders, boundaries and districts to effectively
use resources, solve problems and offer services. Mobile
technology, social media networking, and teleconferencing have
become commonplace, bypassing political and social barriers,
facilitating connections between people and places in time zones
around the world.
 LOCATION DRIVES DEVELOPMENT

A recent partnership between JLL, a commercial real estate firm and

London & Partners, the mayor’s company for promoting the city of
London, resulted in the creation of the location based GROW.
LONDON1 platform. A deeply interactive online platform designed to
help businesses and investors identify opportunities,
GROW.LONDON encourages international companies to operate
and expand in London. The online platform assists in navigating
London’s changing demographics, economic patterns and
infrastructure by providing access to large amounts of data: tube,
rail, air connectivity, population growth and commercial output.

JLL wanted to give their clients the ability to access and analyze data,
providing business intelligence on key locations and enabling more
informed investments. GROW.LONDON used CARTO to unify the
location data together with up-to-date visualizations that allow
users to quickly access information on the city’s trends,
neighborhoods and growing business zones, integrating multiple
datasets in a single interactive map and dashboard. The
visualizations chart population growth, transit connectivity,
economic output, housing prices, emerging market clusters and a
timeline of real estate development in the city. Each of these data
sources were synced and delivered from CARTO’s data library and
APIs, providing immediacy and accuracy.

1
GROW.LONDON, Oct 2015. <http://grow.london/>
With CARTO, JLL and London & Partners delivered immersive maps
showing existing city development networks as well as future
projects. Users can explore a live visualization of London’s current
residential markers and annual price changes at a glance. JLL
recognized CARTO as the right core solution for the base of
GROW.LONDON in part because the platform allows for updates of
each map without the assistance of a software developer. Nacho
Moreno, GIS Analyst at JLL, noted that "GROW.LONDON
visualizations, created with CARTO, allowed our businesses to
unlock the potential opportunities that a city like London offers.
CARTO’s versatility (multi-platform) and ease of use makes it the
perfect technology for our audience." Real estate companies,
consultants and developers have been quick to see the benefits of
location data to provide value for their clients—the innovative site is
a showcase for economic and predictive analysis.
BIG DATA, COMPANIES, AND CUSTOMERS

Data now comes from many new sources including mobile devices,
wearables, car sensors, smart power grids and other machines,
satellites, and drones. New sources of data continue to surface
daily, and the rate of available data sources will only increase. All
this technology comes with a buzzy descriptive
vocabulary—sometimes it can be difficult to find relevancy in the
hype. “Big data” is a catch-all term used to indicate amounts of
information too vast to be stored in typical databases. Big data
describes terabytes or exabytes of data per set—an exabyte starts
with 1 and has 18 zeros after it, or 1 million terabytes. The amounts
of data generated, streamed, and stored today are exponentially
greater than before.

However, big data is not new—it has been in use since the advent of
supercomputing. Now it is more ubiquitous and accessible outside
the realm of scientists and specialists. It has also become critical for
business applications. The IDC reported that the big data technology
market size was $3.2 billion US dollars in 2010, and it will grow to
$16.9 billion by 2015. Businesses are rapidly developing strategies
encompassing these new tools in order to maintain an edge in
competitive and changing environments. Keeping pace with
technology is a challenge for companies, but software platforms
with ongoing innovations and updates built-in can help
organizations visualize, analyze and ingest the ever expanding
streams of data.

How does all this data help people, and what about the customer or
client? The discourse around data can sometimes seem to lose sight
of people. However, organizations have discovered that data can be
one of the best ways to get insights about customers and how to
serve them better, increasing brand loyalty and improving customer
relationship management. Linking customer addresses to a
geographic area and then running these against internal company
data and external demographics such as census data and income
data, or other open data can provide unprecedented levels of detail.
Who people are, what they do, and how and when they consume is
tied to the ​
where​
in essential ways. What is their neighborhood,
commute, and workplace? These locations and their spatial
relationships lead to a more in-depth understanding of behavior
and influences. Since a high percentage of data already has
geographical information attached to it, insights about these
relationships are readily available. Traditional business intelligence
reports accessed internal static data in siloed IT departments.
location intelligence now allows for incorporating external data from
a variety of sources that can be combined and updated dynamically
in the cloud. Companies can update the accessibility of their brand
locations, marketing and potential new sites accordingly.

Rilos, a business-to-business consulting company specializing in

retail and commercial real estate, combined business intelligence
and geographic analysis relating to projected store sites and
consumer behavior. Using CARTO, Rilos created Geomatrix, an
online platform producing rapid user-friendly analytical reports
directly for employees and clients, bypassing the old requirement
for GIS specialists. The Geomatrix app uses CARTO to aggregate big
data, technologies, and algorithms in a single online platform to
generate site studies. CARTO's Torque feature created animated
visualizations using chronological time-stamped data. This dynamic
capability provides a new look at data analytics over specific time
periods. Geomatrix subscribers can now audit the commercial
environment of their existing point of sales portfolio, compare this
data with operational results, and process correlation analysis to
determine which external parameters are impacting point of sales
turnover.
Rilos is now able to scale its business for a large number of clients
and to expand into new markets, while providing greater
transparency and control. Rilos’ clients can control and assess the
studies processed, limiting internal and external corruption. They
can focus on their core business, with improved speed and security,
identifying and assessing new project potential, gaining an edge on
direct competition. Platforms like Geomatrix show how business
intelligence can drive more informed decisions and planning and
deliver returns with minimal investment.
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE FOR FINANCE

Financial institutions know that shifting political, economic, social,

and natural conditions mean that the world is constantly changing.
In order to adapt to and mitigate the impact of these changes,
readily available, real-time information presented in a
comprehensive and actionable format has become critical. Financial
organizations have always faced economic challenges that include
deciding where and to whom to lend their limited capital, and how
to efficiently produce profitability, but location intelligence can help
to reduce risk and improve profitability in new ways. Gains from
location intelligence for finance range from improved fraud
detection to product segmentation.
 BBVA, Spain’s second largest financial institution has CARTO
On-Premises as a part of their ongoing innovation program. BBVA
has also collaborated with CARTO and CARTO partner Vizzuality to
create a public, online visualization that analyzes transactions
geographically and chronologically in real time2 . BBVA’s data on
spending from 5.4 million anonymized credit card transactions, over
a period of over four years, was used to create the interactive
visualization. The map tracks the spending over time and space,
showing the country of origin, travel destinations within Spain and
transaction categories: hotels, restaurants, transportation, clothes,
and the like. It was designed to break down big data into smaller
digestible sections by providing multiple access points. The
visualization provides an accurate overall picture of the economics
of tourism in Spain, along with an in-depth view of smaller segments
for fine grained detail--for example, to see where Russian or French
tourists like to spend, when they spend and on what.

2
BBVA, Oct, 2015. <http://bbvatourism.vizzuality.com/?nationality%5B%5D=US>
Global businesses track political or economic risks; access to
location intelligence visualizations are an important tool in
understanding these risks. Institutions can easily see where conflicts
are intensifying, what assets of the firm are in the affected area, and
what client assets are at risk. Location intelligence allows situational
analysis of potential harm to firm assets, employees, and clients.
Understanding how private clients are impacted by conflict, financial
institutions can be responsive to client needs, and improve
customer appreciation, retention, and future business objectives.
Clear views on what and where financial assets are at risk from
conflict, such as loans secured by local assets, enable financial
institutions to take actions to minimize losses.

With climate change emerging as a concern, predictive location

analytics tools incorporated into overall risk management are more
important than ever. Location intelligence provides the ability for
bank management executives, risk managers, and regulators to
isolate areas of potential harm to bank assets: branches, ATMs,
offices, customers, and employees, to minimize and eliminate that
threat. Management dashboards encompass information that is
needed for making informed decisions and monitoring actions in
many visual formats including geographic, chart and tabular.
CARTO’s flexible and robust location intelligence platform provides
the ability to successfully build, deploy, and support integration with
existing data sources and third party platforms. CARTO’s enterprise
architecture and On-Premises implementation ensures data privacy,
protection and compliance.
 DATA OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES

In a recent paper, industry analyst Gartner outlined one of the

challenges of handling data properly, “With the advent of the
Internet of Things comes a great opportunity to identify and track
people, whether employees, customers or consumers — but this
also introduces potential risk. Inappropriate application of GLI can
lead to regulatory, ethical and even legal issues. This means that any
new use-case idea should be evaluated in line with regulatory
requirements, regional privacy and data protection laws. It must be
part of the governance practice to identify appropriate usage of
location data”3

With good data management, the benefits well outweigh the risks. A
recent report from McKinsey Global Institute underscored the clear
proof that big data will benefit the business world and national
economies broadly, “Our research finds that data can create
significant value for the world economy, enhancing the productivity
and competitiveness of companies and the public sector and
creating substantial economic surplus for consumers.” The same
report indicated significant gains for private commerce, “In the
private sector, we estimate, for example, that a retailer using big
data to the full has the potential to increase its operating margin by
more than 60 percent.”4

Not all companies need or have big data sources--some have

smaller amounts of data that is just as important to analyze.
Additionally, companies will need to make comparisons between
the new, massive data feeds and older data sources like revenue
figures and customer records in order to draw conclusions and take
action. Big data often presents challenges to businesses in part

3
i​bid
4
Ja
​mes Manyika, et al. “Big Data: The next frontier for innovation, competition and productivity”, 2011.
McKinsey Global Institute.
 because of the often cited “V’s” of data. Those presenting the most
difficulty to companies are volume, variety, and velocity5 . In this
complex environment, efficiency and capacity are necessary.
Handling massive volumes of data in the cloud reduces strain on
internal resources and IT departments. Cloud computing, or
Software-as-a-Service, (SaaS) is flexible and scalable and has a low
barrier to entry. The cloud removes the need for internal hosting or
management, and provides affordable access to constantly
updating data and technology.

Big data sources for companies often include three main categories,
transactional, machine and social. Transactional data can include
purchases, orders, delivery information and invoices. Machine data
is an area of rapid growth as more devices are manufactured with
sensors, as in the Internet of Things, including data collected from
industry, cameras and data collected via weblogs online. Social
media networks also generate vast amounts of data. A software
platform that integrates data sets from a range of sources, as well
as providing visualizations of the data is essential for making
comparisons.

Without clear visualizations representing data, businesses are left

behind, relying on specialists to analyze and report the information.
Today’s customers make changes and decisions quickly, and
keeping up with them requires agility. More customer data means
companies can provide better customer service and improve loyalty
through increased responsivity. Social media data can lead to
closely targeted marketing campaigns and help resolve customer
service problems as they arise, leading to improved customer
engagement. Real time data updates allow companies to keep
abreast of changes.

5
Soumendra Mohanty, “The Four Essential Vs For a Big Data Analytics Platform, June 2015. Dataconomy.
EstateBlock, a real estate tech startup, created a dynamic housing
search engine in Vancouver, BC and the surrounding area. Like any
startup, EstateBlock wanted to make changes in the industry.
EstateBlock’s founder Dan Marusin knew that most real estate
websites in Canada do not provide useful information about the
listing and neighborhood, aside from the general multiple listing
information. So EstateBlock set out to collect as much data on
listings and neighborhoods as possible, such as crime rates,
comparable listings, school ratings, school service areas, and
demographics data for every street in Greater Vancouver. This
included information on income, education, median age, transit,
daycare, noise from the roads, airports and seaports,
electromagnetic fields, pollution from big power lines, and even
climate data. Once EstateBlock had gathered the data, they began
researching the best way to share it, trying out graphs and charts
before settling on maps as the best option. With a map, anyone
could see the crime statistics in their neighborhood and compare it
with all other neighborhoods in Greater Vancouver, at a glance. At
this point, a problem for EstateBlock was that nobody on the team
had any experience with maps. Masurin discovered CARTO, and
realized that specialized experience wasn’t necessary. Masurin
wrote:
 “I tried CARTO’s free account as a trial and totally fell in love with the interface, which is
very simple, yet extremely flexible and advanced when you need it to be. The best thing
about CARTO is that you don’t need any coding skills to create stunning maps or to
understand any of the many manuals available. The last and most important feature of
CARTO, was the ability to secure maps that I spent months on, to protect them from
content scraping. I also love the fact that CARTO is growing with us and adding more and
more features for real time applications.” 6

The maps have also been very successful in terms of driving media
interest. Maps like EstateBlock’s Vancouver land price map, posted
on the EstateBlock blog, have been picked up by media companies
and become viral on Facebook, bringing increased site visitors and
business. The map visualizations have also been an excellent and
low cost method of attracting traffic, building backlinks, and growing
brand awareness.

6
Santiago Giraldo Anduaga, “Enterprise Spotlight: EstateBlock”, Jul. 2015, Oct. 2015. CARTO,
<https://blog.carto.com/estateblock/>
Estateblock understands the value of data-driven decisions for
business and innovation—Masurin explains, “We started this
website a couple of years ago and have become one of the most
popular real estate websites in BC, by offering a ridiculous amount
of exclusive data to prospective BC home buyers. Data that is not
available from any other website.” House hunters have diverse
concerns, with some looking for good schools, some prioritizing low
crime areas, and others hoping for as many sunny days as possible.
Home buyers can now operate with the facts and numbers in hand,
and don’t need to rely on the opinions of realtors or anecdotes.
CARTO integrates all the data into one seamless platform, updating
in real time so that buyers and investors can get a remarkably
in-depth picture of every property in Greater Vancouver.
 LOCATION FOR OPERATIONAL LOGISTICS

Savvy businesses are increasing profit margins by using location to

make better matches between consumers needs and products.
Layering data sets at store locations or distribution centers can help
companies gain insights: demographics, sales and environmental
information can be combined. Location is also a powerful tool for
companies in setting prices. A report on data-based pricing from
McKinsey & Company reported on the successes of localized data,
“We’ve seen companies in industries as diverse as software,
chemicals, construction materials, and telecommunications achieve
impressive results by using big data to inform better pricing
decisions. All had enormous numbers of SKUs and transactions, as
well as a fragmented portfolio of customers; all saw a profit-margin
lift of between 3 and 8 percent from setting prices at much more
granular product levels.” 7

Despite these gains, the tremendous opportunities of location

intelligence are only beginning to be understood in the business
community. A 2014 Gartner survey of business intelligence reported
that only about 23% of organizations use location intelligence
capabilities within their business intelligence strategy.8 This number
is expected to increase significantly in the next two years as
companies become aware of the opportunities of a location-based
business intelligence strategy, and the dangers of falling behind.

Operational logistics can improve efficiency using dynamically

updated data that can be accessed in the field, en route, or from the

7
Walter Baker, Dieter Kiewell, Georg Winkler, “Using big data to make better pricing decisions”, June, 2014.
​
McKinsey & Company
8
Thomas W. Oestreich, “Location, the next champion”, 2014. Gartner
​
office. Fleet Services tasked Crestone Digital, a CARTO Partner, with
improving logistics management for their fleet of semi trailers. They
wanted an internal service to assist their 24-hour call center in
aiding truck drivers on the road. Crestone created a digital mapping
system containing the data of service centers nationwide to be used
by dispatchers assisting trucks on the road. The call center
dispatchers can tap into the CARTO street address search feature to
find the geographical area of a vehicle that may need service. If
more detail is needed, the dispatcher can switch to satellite imagery
to find geographical markers based on the driver’s description. A
marker representing the truck can be placed that gives a clear
visual—concentric rings representing miles appear at intervals, for
example at 5, 10, 15, or 30 miles.

Once the truck is located, the call center can apply filters for the
required services—tire repair, towing service or other. A geospatial
query is run to pair up the requested service with the nearest
provider using color coded markers showing complete or partial
matches. Details about the service centers are quickly accessed
through pop up windows with hours of operation and clickable
contact numbers. The OpenStreetMap routing engine integrated
driving directions to or from the center and the vehicle. The
directions include estimated driving time, distance, and step by step
directions.

The cloud-based app also has the flexibility to include tens of

thousands of service centers without a sacrifice in speed. The ease
of access to the essentials provided by the mobile friendly app allow
for faster response time and better overall quality of service. The
app provides the ability to query alongside clear visual display
options for the needed services nationwide as well as detailed route
information. Combined, these features create a powerful tool for
Fleet Services, providing a much clearer picture of how each case is
handled, and the integration of CARTO, SQL and Mapping in one
cloud based service kept costs down. The benefits of location
intelligence across industries from finance to retail, CARTO is the
solution for accessible data-driven analysis. A SaaS platform proven
on a global scale, CARTO supports the enterprise community with a
platform that delivers the value of location visualization and
analytics.

SPATIAL DATA TO MAPS IN MINUTES - HOW IT

WORKS

The CARTO Builder's wizards can be applied to data in just a few

minutes to create maps and extract basic spatial insights.
The CARTO Builder has easy-to-use wizards that novice users can
apply to instantly visualize spatial patterns. Cartographic techniques
such as choropleth maps, category maps and heatmaps are just a
few clicks away. CARTO's Torque technology allows for animation of
time-series data, creating vibrant and engaging maps that show
trends over time. The in-browser CARTO Builder provides a simple
entry point for making and sharing maps and enabling powerful
visual data discovery. With simple point-and-click wizards and an
attractive user-friendly interface built for the web, there’s no need to
read a manual or undergo training before deriving insights from
data.

For more advanced users who wish to create their own custom
maps, full control is given with CARTO’s CartoCSS map styling
language. Users already familiar with web design principles like CSS
will find CartoCSS is easy to learn. The CARTO Engine offers a set of
application programming interfaces (APIs) which offer advanced GIS
users and developers the capability to create complex mapping
applications, manage and import data, run geospatial analysis, and
perform other functions.

The CARTO Builder is built on top of the CARTO Engine, giving an

idea of all that is possible with the Platform APIs. Behind it all is
PostgreSQL, the world’s most advanced open source database,
coupled with PostGIS, a set of open source spatial extensions for
PostgreSQL. Used by financial firms like Goldman Sachs and BBVA,
PostgreSQL is capable of handling the biggest of datasets with
millions of records. Account transactions, branch locations,
performance metrics, demographic data—​
you name it, CARTO can
store and analyze it.
IMPLEMENT CARTO FOR ENTERPRISE

CARTO can be installed in the cloud, or On-Premises, and customized to

suit internal requirements.

CARTO enterprise cloud accounts can be turned on virtually

instantaneously—the sales enablement team sets up a dedicated
cloud server, giving the ability to start building maps right away.
Users can use the SQL API to push data into CARTO, make use of
sync tables, pull data from external sources, use the connectors, or
just upload spatial data files. Dataset-level permissions can be set,
allowing for controlled sharing of data across the organization.

For On-Premises installation, CARTO provides a preconfigured

virtual appliance to install in the client’s local server environment.
CARTO’s On-Premises team assists with the installation, allowing for
set up in under an hour. Regular updates including security patches
and new features then come directly to the client. A fully supported,
maintained and secure version of CARTO will then run on the client’s
internal machines.

CONCLUSION

Location intelligence is steadily becoming a critical core strategy in

the competitive global economy. CARTO users can access
cost-effective custom location solutions and monitor network
operations. They can layer data on any base map provider using
internal and external data sources and share data visualizations
within teams. By implementing CARTO’s solution, businesses will be
able to gain insights on location based events at any time.
Dynamically and visually understand the performance,
opportunities and challenges facing your business.
TRY IT OUT

Try a 14 day trial of the CARTO Pro Plan now, or talk to one of our
location intelligence experts about a plan that meets your
requirements: ​
sales@carto.com

Also see: CARTO ​

Smart Cities​
and ​
Financial Risk​
white papers

For more information visit: ​

https://carto.com/enterprise​
or contact
sales@carto.com