Thought leadership

GIS solution identification

Identifying strategic value and how GIS solutions can help realize it

GIS is often considered to be a solution in search of a problem. As advocates for GIS often find out, there are many barriers to getting a technology-led project funded, which takes functionality as its primary concern over business value. From a budget holder’s perspective, little knowledge and much skepticism of GIS’s positive impact on the business and ability to deliver on promised value. We advocate an alternative approach in which organizations seek to identify and articulate common business challenges across multiple departments. The goal is to move a wide cross-section of stakeholders to the same page by understanding key challenges they share. Only once the problem has been clearly defined and agreed upon is it appropriate to proffer potential solutions.

How can advocates identify strategic objectives to develop a compelling case for GIS-enabled change?

This paper provides an overview of how to effect change within your organization from the top down, rather than pushing from the bottom up with a technology-driven solution. What follows are insights that illustrate how this approach is more effective than traditional approaches that seek to ‘sell the business’ on how GIS would solve their problems. We will describe how to:

• Work with executives to identify strategic objectives and benefits
• Effectively assess the current state of business operations
• Determine if change is truly needed
• Represent how the GIS change initiative will support strategic objectives.

We have developed a structured methodology that assesses the strategic objectives and identifies the current state of the organization through a three-step process: Mobilization, Diagnosis and Visioning. To reap the benefits of this methodology, this process should not be tied to any prescribed outcome but to identify the best solution for the business. To GIS advocates this may seem counterintuitive, but being solution-agnostic helps gain credibility and buy-in from business stakeholders.