How location insights answers the 'where' questions of your business

The first presentation of the day featured Melanie du Plessis, the ICT Business Solutions Manager at the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) of South Africa. The IEC is mandated to manage elections of national, provincial and municipal legislative bodies. They do this by ensuring that elections are free and fair. Du Plessis gave an overview of the electoral processes and applications, illustrating how Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and addresses fit into the IEC environment.

To run an election is a complex social and logistical process where margin for error is small. The IEC implements state-of-the-art technology and GIS to aid them in registering voters and delivering successful elections. AfriGIS has been assisting the IEC with various projects and processes including planning of voting station positions, time-based factors impacting registration and election day executions, as well as responding to electoral queries relating to “WHERE?” questions. These responses can take on various forms from hardcopy maps, through to thematic heat maps on mobile devices.

Delegates also heard from AfriGIS Data Manager, Christopher Ueckermann who went through the AfriGIS Data processes and updates, changes that took place in this release and the highlights of the year.

In closing, AfriGIS’s Chief Business Officer, Brian Civin shared some insight in applying business intelligence by understanding what questions are being asked. “Are you delivering the correct solution to your clients? Do you understand the entire business process to provide simple answers to one question? Are clients accessible? Can you reach them? How much impact can be made with accurate data, and how we can bring various data together to make it available to the right people for planning. How can we translate planning data into operations, and most importantly – how do we measure the outcome as a measure of your success.”

What does this all mean? When you start implementing your strategies, remember to plan for location and consider the point of what you are doing. Everything you do in your organisation consists of various elements that all work together effectively to provide insights and make decisions based on the question that is asked. “Insights is producing order and art. Location insights is like a piece of music, the notes on its own is pretty chaotic, but put it together in a sensible way and you have a beautiful piece of music.”

The next AfriGIS Data and Spatial Workshop is planned for March 2018. Attendance qualifies for 0.5 CPD points. For more information contact Heidi Witthoft – az.oc.sigirfa@idieh