Why spatial info is relevant across all industries

During this year's annual DMTI Spatial Expedition partner and customer conference held in Toronto, company executives outlined how businesses can use geospatial content solutions to be profitable even during a recession.

The Markham, Ont.-based location information management vendor, whose solutions focus on helping businesses make more informed and strategic decisions through location-based data, saw over 300 partners and customers from across the country in attendance at this year's conference.

Earlier this year the company introduced its Location Content Cartridge (LCC) line of solutions, which target specific vertical industry needs. Chris Thomas, vice-president and general manager of enterprise solutions at DMTI, said LCC was designed to make it easier for the solutions to align with industry-specific needs. He adds though, that spatial information is relevant and can be used across all industries and vertical markets. Some examples of sectors that would benefit from location-based solutions are businesses in the telecommunications, insurance, public sector, retail and oil and gas markets, Thomas says.

"Telcos, for instance, can see where their towers and customers are," Thomas explains. "They can also gather information to look at neighbourhoods and their average spend, find potential customers and do mapping based on that, as long as the data's there."

Especially during a down economy, businesses need to ensure they're working with their data in the most efficient and cost-effective way possible in order to see a return on investment (ROI) and to track business trends, Thomas said.

Greg Martell, national director of platform and emerging solutions at SAP Canada, and also an alliance partner of DMTI, says over the course of this past year, he's seen a "huge growth" in geospatial and location-based data solutions.

"This growth is being driven by (the) organizations' desires to visualize their information as opposed to just looking at maps," he said. "Geospatial solutions are becoming increasingly important because it seems to be driven by trends outside of the business area too with things like Google Maps and the iPhone. With our partnership with DMTI, we can move geospatial data into our Master Data Management (MDM) solution to let customers use address and geospatial data as part of their overall solution."

George Staikos, president of DMTI Canada, said DMTI leverages its alliance partnership with SAP to get into the enterprise business market. Staikos says today, only about 10 per cent of the company's overall revenues flow through its reseller partners. The rest of its business comes from DMTI, which services many of its customers directly. The company, he says, only has a handful of partners because its core focus is in working with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).

While DMTI is not actively seeking out more reseller partners, Staikos says the door's not closed for other potential partners and if interested, partners should get in touch with DMTI.