What is location data and location intelligence
In 2019 the number of connected devices will produce more data than ever before. As this increases the data will become fundamental to many industries and businesses.
Data will fuel everything from city planning to advertising and marketing. Location-based data will be more accurate than ever before, and it will be used more in areas where big data has already had an initial impact.
Across many industries, location data and location intelligence is proving to be a powerful tool for companies looking to maintain a competitive edge. It is being used to deliver insights that have previously been inaccessible. In 2019 accurate and precise location data will be leveraged to generate new insights and power better understandings of behaviour and movement.
Location intelligence is the practice of using location data to achieve business outcomes. This uses mobile devices and sensors to visualise and enrich understanding of how devices move in the real world.
These interactive data sets are used alongside a business’ current solutions to create a powerful competitive edge and optimise business functions.
With strong roots in advertising location data and location intelligence are increasingly being utilised in new verticals from finance to planning and construction. In 2019 location data will be more commonplace, and location intelligence solutions will be fundamental to the success of many different businesses.
The future of location intelligence in 2019
With the rise of location data and location intelligence businesses will see new use cases and more powerful datasets.
Changes that we expect to see in the space will include the following:
Combining datasets
The next step for location data sets is combining with extra information to enhance the value for data users.
In 2019 data providers will provide more detail around datasets as standard. Demographics and other metadata will add value out of the box. As well as this there will be an increased number of businesses that will combine their datasets with identifiers in the location data to improve functionality and create new ways of understanding existing datasets.
This also means that it should be clear and transparent which data sets are used. Providers should have a standardised way that business can filter and understand which data points should be ingested and used alongside the correct datasets.
In 2019 location data will be more transparent and more accessible to use alongside existing customer datasets to maximise business functions. By linking location data businesses will instantly have a more detailed view of their customers or relevant segments.
More uses
Location intelligence is beginning to gain prevalence outside of the marketing industry.
A considerable majority of marketers (82%) are now planning on upscaling their use of location data over the next two years.
As location data use in marketing reaches a critical point, we will begin to see it adopted more readily in other industries and feature in new use cases.
As more organisations document and formalise their use of location intelligence the value of these datasets will become more apparent and are adopted outside of the traditional verticals, such as marketing and advertising.
While marketing and advertising are still the most common use case for location data and location intelligence; there is a dramatic increase in both the number of industries that say they will invest more in the technology and those that already have.
Expect to see location data involved as a fundamental part of any effective BI strategy. Understanding device movement with precision will fuel predictive capabilities. Location intelligence will be widespread in everything from City planning through to logistics, automation and investment.
New use cases will emerge. Location data will be used to understand global trends for journalistic purposes to understanding environmental changes and populations.
Data accuracy and quality
New industries will require better accuracy and a better way of consuming the insights that location data can provide.
In 2019 we will move away from talking about postcodes and large scale geofencing. Instead expect to see granularity, three-dimensional location and precise location intelligent solutions.
Businesses must take advantage of a focus on accuracy in the industry and start visualising and analysing datasets at a deeper geographic level.
Many businesses are currently using geographic boundaries such as postcodes or large geofences around more extensive areas.
The technology is now much more granular than this and businesses should be aware of the new and custom functionalities that the leading location data solutions can provide.
Expect to see more detailed datasets that include variables to filter out inaccuracies and other data points that are not useful for the end data user. These processes will become automatic in 2019, and the best providers will be able to boast systems that can automatically detect these outliers in the data.
Analysing the data
As big data becomes fundamental to many organisations, more datasets will be available.
More data types mean better unification is needed for customers because of this 2019 will see the emergence of LaaS (Location as a service).
Ready to use location platforms will empower businesses to leverage the unique insights that location data offers. It will allow them to visualise and digest insights easily. It will support manipulation of data and provide functionality to integrate these into current business functions and solutions.
These platforms will be closer to real-time than before and provide more granular insights that will allow businesses to act immediately on these insights.
The experts in precise location
Get in touch to get ahead with location intelligence or to see how you can use location data to benefit your business.
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James is the head of marketing at Tamoco
