Location intelligence is a method of collecting, visualizing, and analyzing geospatial data. As nearly 80% of business data has the location component, it can generate location intelligence to make better business decisions, enhance customer experience, and optimize business processes.
In this article, we will learn about the key use cases, benefits, and importance of location intelligence for businesses.
Index
- What is Location Intelligence?
- What Technology Does Location Intelligence Use?
- What is the Difference Between Location Intelligence and Business Intelligence?
- What are the Top Location Intelligence Use Cases?
- What are the Top Industries Using Location Intelligence?
- What are the Benefits of Location Intelligence?
What is Location Intelligence?
Location intelligence is a method of collecting insights from geospatial data to solve specific problems across various industries. It is primarily built on geographical information systems (GIS) tools to provide analytical and operational business solutions. The technology helps businesses and governments gather key data sets, including GPS, transactional, and point-of-sale data used for in-depth geospatial analysis.
What Technology Does Location Intelligence Use?
Location intelligence is a business solution that analyzes geographical data to derive spatial insights. It collects and integrates location data from LiDAR, satellites, drones, and sensors powered by the Internet of Things (IoT). Location intelligence software helps business leaders visualize and identify trends and patterns derived from geospatial analytics.
Also Read: Location Intelligence Trends for 2025
What is the Difference Between Location Intelligence and Business Intelligence?
Business Intelligence focuses on structured business data, like sales, customer demographics, and financial performance, to support informed decision-making. Meanwhile, location Intelligence uses spatial data and GIS to provide geographic context, uncover location-based patterns, and real-time actionable insights.
Business intelligence helps organizations interpret business metrics, while location intelligence enhances this by integrating geospatial analysis for better decision-making. Learn more about the key differences between these two intelligences here.
What are the Top Location Intelligence Use Cases?
Enterprises across industries use location intelligence to streamline business operations and boost customer experience. Here are a few top location intelligence use cases.
1. Supply Chain Network Design
With location intelligence, organizations can design and optimize supply chain networks. They can run simulations to identify the most suitable location for warehouses and distribution hubs, generate optimal routes, analyze demand patterns, and minimize costs.
2. Territory Management
Organizations can create equitable sales and service territories based on demand density with geospatial data and location intelligence platforms. It prevents overlaps, balances workloads, and improves resource allocation for higher efficiency.
3. Field Force Management
Organizations with a large field force use location intelligence to track the live location of their team. Managers get end-to-end visibility into the activities of agents with geo-fencing to check for any false check-ins or route deviations.
4. Geomarketing
Businesses use location data to target customers based on demographics, foot traffic, and regional preferences. Retailers and financial institutions select store locations and personalize marketing campaigns to maximize customer engagement.
5. Delivery Management
QSR and retail companies use location intelligence to track delivery riders and manage order fulfillment. They can create location-driven beat plans and optimal routes to reduce delivery costs, maintain SLAs, and improve customer experience.
What are the Top Industries Using Location Intelligence?
1. BFSI
Banks, NBFCs, MFIs, and insurance companies onboard AI/ML-powered tools that use location data to track and manage field force, improve market penetration, site selection for opening a branch or atm, identify positive/negative areas to offer loans, and more.
2. Retail and CPG
In the case of consumer goods companies, location intelligence is used for key use cases like creating a sales beat plan for field agents, market expansion, orchestrating deliveries, supply chain management, dealer network management, order fulfillment, and more.
3. Logistics and Shipping
To improve their first-to-last-mile deliveries, logistics companies leverage location intelligence to strengthen their supply chain network design. With robust geospatial analytics tools, organizations streamline deliveries, improve delivery orchestration, and more.
What are the Benefits of Location Intelligence?
1. Uncover Hidden Trends and Patterns
Visualizing data on a map makes it easier to detect patterns that go unnoticed in traditional reports. Businesses can analyze customer foot traffic to find high-performing store/outlet locations, while insurance companies can assess risk levels by mapping weather patterns and claim histories.
2. Make Faster, Data-Driven Decisions
Real-time location data enables quick responses to changing conditions. Logistics companies can track delivery vehicles and dynamically update routes to avoid delays. Emergency response teams can pinpoint disaster-affected areas and allocate optimum resources.
3. Improve Operational Efficiency
Integrating location intelligence with business data provides a comprehensive view of operations. Organizations can reduce costs by optimizing supply chains, workforce deployment, and asset management.
Final Thoughts
AI, coupled with geospatial data, is revolutionizing industries worldwide. Using a location intelligence platform with robust AI/ML-enabled solutions enables organizations to significantly improve their business performance.
Take the next step toward smarter operations with Dista’s AI-enabled location intelligence platform to unlock real-time insights and make data-driven decisions. Get in touch with us to see our platform in action.
