The Elevation of the Concept of Where for Business Continuity
The discipline of location intelligence has been thrown into the limelight by the emergence of COVID-19. It is a truism to say that everything happens somewhere, however when that somewhere is a threat to your life, then the concept of “where” is most certainly front of mind. In addition, the impact of “where” on trade, economic sustainability, and social deprivation, is also immense under the constraints imposed by COVID-19.
Whilst it seems that countries are moving through the worst of the health conditions brought on by the pandemic, the social and economic impacts will be felt for a much longer time. Organisations will therefore need to be well prepared in terms of 1) business continuity, 2) stakeholder engagement, and 3) growth strategies, under conditions that have not been faced for over 100 years.
Consider the following circumstances which are all intimately connected to location:
· Mortality risk.
· Incidence of infections and recoveries.
· “Safe” areas to relax isolation, and re-start personal attendance and activity.
· Customers and stakeholders undertaking remote transactions.
· Supply logistics for home deliveries.
· Employee travel distances and routes to work and client premises.
· People movement and density generally.
· Available employment.
· Health support services.
· Social support services.
The ability to quickly and easily see what is happening where, at the most granular level, is key to being able to address the three key areas of continuity, engagement, and growth. Such insight is available from location intelligence solution providers who have been focused on “where” for many years. These solutions are typified by geospatial data visualisations which tell a compelling story often in a single picture such as the ones below. The first is a map of spend on groceries by home location in parts of Sydney. Such simple information can greatly assist stock planning, promotions, and supply logistics.
However, when combined with the following image showing COVID-19 mortality risk areas in Sydney, a business may want to revise their engagement and business continuity strategy for particular areas.
These types of geospatial visualisations and associated data analytics provide decision support validation for risk management and business continuity. Further, the granularity can be down to individual address level depending on the type of information required for such data-driven decision-making. All this can be done while protecting the privacy of citizens.
COVID-19 has elevated the concept of “where” and solution providers of the “where” component such as Virus Strategy, Data Resilience, and Mapcite are leading the charge to address this business continuity challenge.
