230 Part II • Information Technology
FIGURE 6.3 Culver’s Turns to GIS for Store Location Decisions (Data in this figure courtesy of Culver’s. The ArcMap/ArcView
graphical user interface is the intellectual property of Esri and is used by permission. Copyright © 2010 Esri. All rights reserved.)
GIS—a generic term for any system that specializes in
geographic data—features a rich user display and an
interactive environment that is highly engaging to human
decision makers.
Fields as diverse as natural resource management,
public administration, NASA, the military, and urban
planning have been using GISs for more than four decades.
Scientists, planners, oil and gas explorers, foresters,
soldiers, and mapmakers have matured this technology,
developing sophisticated capabilities for creating, display-
ing, and manipulating geographic information. In the
1990s geographic technologies came to the attention of
business users as the power of desktop computing merged
with widespread access to geographic data. Today
geographic technologies are moving into key business
functions enabled by technologies such as radio frequency
identification (RFID) tags, embedded Global Positioning
System (GPS) capabilities, and spatial analysis features in
mainstream database management systems (DBMSs).
More important, many firms are learning that most
business data have inherent spatial meaning, and they are
taking steps to exploit this characteristic.
Business Adopts Geographic Technologies
Geographic technologies in business were a well-kept
secret for many years; the earliest business adopters of
GISs seldom talked about it because of its competitive
value. Firms such as Arby’s and McDonald’s—whose
ability to succeed depends on being in a better location
than competitors—used GISs for site location to become
among the first to recognize the business benefits of
geographic technologies. Culver’s, a Wisconsin-based
quick-service restaurant chain known for its ButterBurgers
and frozen custard, uses Esri’s GIS software to help
franchisees choose the best possible locations for their
restaurants. According to Dave O’Brien, Real Estate
Manager at Culver’s, “Using ArcGIS Business Analyst,
we are able to easily compare and contrast new sites by
analyzing the demographics of our existing restaurants and
then pinpointing new areas that are similar.” As one step in
this process, Figure 6.3 defines areas being serviced by
existing Culver’s restaurants in Madison, Wisconsin
(Richardson, 2008).
Other business applications include market analysis
and planning, logistics and routing, real estate, environmental
engineering, and the geographic pattern analysis that mort-
gage bankers use to show that they do not “redline” areas—
that is, unfairly deny loans by location. Today, many sources
provide high-quality geographically encoded data; few com-
panies need to digitize their own maps or photographs.
Many functional areas in business are using spatial
technologies to recognize and manage their geographic