Communications of the Association for Information Systems (Volume13, 2004) 177-195 193
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APPENDIX I. A TECHNOLOGY FOR BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE: GEOGRAPHIC
INFORMATION SYSTEMS (GIS)
In the narrow sense, a geographic information system (GIS) is a software package that links
databases and electronic maps. At a more general level, the term GIS refers to the ability to
analyze spatial phenomena. These systems are an important business intelligence tool for
exploiting and presenting the increasing amount of two (and more) dimensional data available in
a form that can be understood by analysts and managers.
In addition to collecting, storing, and retrieving spatial location data, a GIS is used to identify
locations which meet specified criteria (e.g., for new store location), exploring relations among
data sets, assessing alternatives and aiding in decision making, and displaying selected
environments both visually and numerically. In practice, a GIS consists of a series of layers, each
presenting a particular two-dimensional feature, which can be superimposed accurately on top of
one another. Some examples:
• a marketing group overlays customer locations, school locations, distribution
centers, and existing retailers selling their own and/or their competitors products.
• A telecommunications company selects the number and location of switching centers
and routes in a communication network. The system displays such quantities as
traffic, costs, and transmission times. Users can redefine the network on the screen,
can create multiple views, see the effect of ‘what if’ changes and new data because
the system re-computes for each change, take constraints into account, and shows
where the proposed solution fails to meet criteria.