| | NOVEMBER 20188CIOReviewBEYOND THE MAP: BUILDING COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE THROUGH LEVERAGING GEOSPATIAL DATABy Nate Haskin, Chief Data Officer, S&P GlobalGeographic Information Systems (GIS) offer a framework for understanding information in relation to its physical location in space. And GIS technology today takes us far beyond traditional cartography to providing key dimensions of location and interconnectivity to every data point. New GIS tools and techniques help organize layers of spatial data with related attributes, empowering users to better understand the physical world.Of course, businesses and investors have long employed data to inform decision making. And for the majority of that history, primary analysis was performed by interrogating clues from the recent past, from the rearview mirror. What were profits like last year? What was the yield from the last production run? Which suppliers delivered for us last quarter? Those who best quantified outcomes exploited an information advantage and were rewarded.Today's technology produces data that reveals far more rich, detailed insight into both economic activity and financial results than ever before--much of it with a spatial component. Connected devices track our location and behaviors; Internet of Things (IoT) sensors are infiltrating commercial and consumer goods; more satellites are launched every year, with increasingly powerful imaging capabilities. Pair this explosion of data with plummeting cost of storage and awesome processing power delivered through cloud computing, and there is massive potential for the creation of new information advantages.But data in isolation has limited value. It's when disparate data sets are combined that new actionable insights are delivered. Data science techniques such as machine learning and deep learning are being used to correlate massive, previously intimidating data sets, allowing them to be used in new and creative ways, often ways that were not necessarily intended when the data was produced. Operators and investors alike are now using data in alternative ways to create predictions and inform decisions. Those who harness the best predictions in their operations will find an edge, and data is the fuel.Nowhere has technology had a larger influence on what is possible than Nate Haskin
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