Location Analytics

What Does Location Analytics Mean?

Location analytics is the process or the ability to gain insight from the location or geographic component of business data. Data, especially transactional data generated by businesses, often contains a geographical component that, when laid out in a geographical information system, allows for new dimensions of analysis and insights, in this case through a more visual approach.

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Techopedia Explains Location Analytics

Location analytics is often a visual way of interpreting and analyzing the information being portrayed by the data when used in conjunction with a geographical information system. This can be done for both real-time geographical data and historical geographical data. Real-time location analytics can be applied to businesses such as courier and postal services, which need to keep track of the locations of delivery vehicles and packages in real time. This is also very useful for military purposes, as being able to know the exact location of troops and enemy movements on a map allows for better informed decisions and presents tactical advantages. On the other hand, chain retail businesses can greatly benefit from knowing the historical spending habits of people from different geographical locations in order to increase sales and increase customer retention through proper targeted advertisements and better product distribution.

Location analytics can also be applied to scientific and disaster prevention efforts. Historical data can be visualized in a map to show which areas are historically affected by flooding and to concentrate anti-flooding efforts to those areas. This goes the same for earthquakes where the government can impose stricter and higher earthquake mitigation requirements for buildings in certain quake-prone areas.

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Margaret Rouse

Margaret Rouse is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical, business audience. Over the past twenty years her explanations have appeared on TechTarget websites and she's been cited as an authority in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine and Discovery Magazine.Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages. If you have a suggestion for a new definition or how to improve a technical explanation, please email Margaret or contact her…