Applying a benefits driven approach to GIS implementation

It is recognized that GIS technology and spatial information provides vast opportunities to add value within any organization – indeed many of us act as champions for our industry all the time. However, articulating and quantifying the monetary return of investment (ROI) in a GIS program is not always easy.

Developing new GIS technology can be exciting from a technologist’s perspective and the benefits easily apparent. The most challenging part of implementing a project like this is convincing both the money men and the wider business that the technology is worth the investment.

Using this simple technique provides several gains:

• the task of building a sufficiently robust benefits model need not be as daunting as expected

• by following this process, the project is more likely to deliver the business what it needs to improve performance rather than a ‘cool gizmo’ that doesn’t work very well

• the budget request is less likely to be challenged and future funding made easier to obtain.

All this liberates the GIS implementation team to focus on what really matters – delivering the benefits.

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