Originally published on KDnuggets.

The term location for business has multiple dimensions attached to it. Right from where a business is located, the locations it is intending to expand to, the location of the customers and competitors, etc play a huge role in the success of a business – operations, revenue, sustainability, and growth.

But for location intelligence, beyond locations, there are other data aspects that come into play that together influence the impact of locations on your business. These aspects could be sociodemographic data, population density, disposable income, purchasing power, weather conditions, and numerous other factors.

Defining Location Intelligence 

Location intelligence (LI), or spatial intelligence, is the process of deriving meaningful insight from geospatial data relationships to solve a particular problem. It involves layering multiple data sets spatially and/or chronologically, for easy reference on a map, and its applications span industries, categories, and organizations. – Wikipedia.

There are a variety of location-based intelligence tools in the market that helps companies visualize data on a map-centric interface that helps them gain insights and strategize their big business moves. The real challenge is how do we know which one to choose? When it comes to evaluating a tool for your business, there are a couple of factors that you may want to consider – the value you derive, price, customer reviews, popularity, and more. 

Here’s a complete list of top 7 location intelligence companies in the market – an overview, pricing, pros, and cons that’ll help you identify the right location intelligence tool for your business.

Top 7 Location Intelligence Companies in 2020

Xtract.io

The tool enables saving hours of time spent on analyzing large datasets. You can get an instant view of visual-based analytics of locations and demographic data that help you draw insights for various business decisions from the tool. The locations data is aggregated from multiple sources and there is a periodic 30-60-90 day refresh for the data.  You can request a demo to understand and evaluate the tool.

Pros:

  • Xtract.io covers locations data across 13+ industries and has a repository of 3M POI data
  • Data repository goes through a 30-60-90 day refresh that ensures the accuracy of data
  • Gain insights on the presence of a competitor, availability of resources, socio-demographic data, psychographic data, transactional, and legal/political data 

Cons:

  • The tool allows a free demo but there is no trial option. However, it is expected to be available shortly

Mapinfo Pro

A product for location intelligence from Pitney Bowes, MapInfo is an all-in-one solution that helps in preparing data for web mapping applications that include data analysis, visual insights, and map publishing. It has a wide range of features – it has a reporting interface, allows data capture, manipulation, and visualization. On the analysis front, the platform enables predictive analytics, distance and spatial analysis, and data stream. The tool for location intelligence analytics is customizable and is supported by API integrations. It is available for a 30-day free trial model for you to run a test and find out if it is suitable for your needs. If you are convinced, and willing to purchase the product, it costs $1440 for a three-year term license.

Pros:

  • Customized apps that are updated continuously
  • The tool is user-friendly and the integrations make life easier
  • The raster analysis capabilities are useful for projects involving flood mapping

Cons:

  • The users of the product feel there are some glitches here and there, but the support system is too good and extend assistance as needed
  • Making maps has been quite difficult for some users. The map basic element is becoming slow that causes frequent problems and needs modernizing
  • It takes time to load big files

Carto

The location intelligence platform helps turn spatial data into efficient delivery routes, behavioral marketing, and strategic store placements. It caters to multiple industries and the platform enables data ingestion and management, data enrichment and analysis, visualization, and integration. They have a 14-day free trial and two plans. The individual plan costs $199 per month and if you opt for the enterprise plan, you have to get in touch with the team.

Pros:

  • Carto is an easy-to-use tool that makes working with the platform easier even for those with limited GIS and programming experience
  • Attractive maps can be created and the progress maps help in tracking edits across regions
  • It enables the display of large datasets and the data display and visualizations make it easy to gain insights
  • Carto’s website is a home to a wealth of resources that helps to understand the platform better with help guides, product fundamental and tool libraries

Cons:

  •  The users have experienced slow load time that interrupts their flow. The tool keeps evolving that results in quality issues, but they get a thumbs up from the users for extending good support
  • There are hints here and there on the internet from the users about how they feel it would be better if the platform had advanced cartographic elements

GapMaps

A cloud-based mapping software based out of Australia that specializes in location intelligence, data analysis, location analytics, demographics, and mapping services. 

The platform enables the gathering of rich insights about the industry and competitors. It has multiple logins feature that can help members of your team on board with the platform. It also helps businesses define a catchment area for retail locations and understand catchment demographics, spending power, and consumer segments. You can get a demo of the platform by reaching out to the team.

Pros:

  • An intuitive and easy-to-use tool that helps in understanding locations and demographics quickly
  • A tool rich with multiple layers of data that helps in understanding various aspects
  • There are customer reviews that recommend GapMaps for a very supportive and approachable team 
  • Provides visual heatmaps of the hotspots and allows integrations

Cons:

  • A common feedback that prevails is about the recency of the data. The tool does not support periodic refreshes, however, the team seems to be working on it
  • A small but a significantly annoying thing that interrupts user experience is a time-out in case of inactivity that requires repeated logins
  • The website seems to lack rich resources that could possibly support user onboarding

Geoblink

It is a location intelligence platform for retail, real estate, and FMCG. Geoblink helps to aggregate data from multiple sources that include public data – sociodemographic, economic, and terrain data and helps to integrate internal data and enrich it. It allows the analysis of data with ML-based techniques. Geoblink has a demo that can be accessed by requesting it. The data can be accessed visually through a map. It also allows the import of customer data to understand buying behavior and sociodemographic profiles.

Pros:

  • An intuitive tool that helps in identifying locations efficiently
  • It allows identifying multiple data sources in one go
  • Optimization of store network can be done in a few simple steps

Cons:

The website has a wide range of content resources, but there are no support documents that help in understanding the platform

Maptive

A powerful and intuitive location intelligence platform that enables customizing maps in numerous ways. You can set a default opening view of the map and choose from a variety of map styles. Maps can be shared with individuals, published on the web, embedded within a webpage or blog using simple HTML code. There is precision level control makes it easy to filter data and route optimization to map a route between multiple locations. The tool helps in understanding the supply chain and to grow the business. The location intelligence software allows a 10-day free trial.

Pros:

  • The platform has a lot of options, pointers, and types of plans
  • It is easy to use and comprehensive tool that makes sharing of maps easier

Cons:

  • Some users feel the product is quite on the expensive side
  • The website lacks enough user guides to help users glide through the onboarding process
  • There’s no option to auto-populate traffic counts

Esri Arc GIS

Contextual tools help in visualizing and analyzing spatial data. The location intelligence solutions make collaboration easy through maps, apps, reports, and dashboards. They have a 21-day free trial to try and test out the product. Its varied capabilities include – spatial analysis and data science, field operations, mapping, real-time visualization and analytics, 3D GIS, data collection and management, and more.

Pros:

  • Supports many global languages Arabic, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Hindi to name a few
  • It offers tools such as 3D analysts, Data Management, Buffer, and clip. 
  • Sundry data can be imported that can be integrated into the users’ own geographical location.

Cons:

  • The model builder in ARCMAP contains a lot of bugs is what some users feel about the tool
  • It is a complex and intimidating tool that requires hours of understanding and learning to master it. Nevertheless, if you get the hang of it, nothing like it!

Wrapping Up

Investing in a location intelligence software can be a game-changer for your business. The insights you gather from location-based analytics will help you add a fresh, strategic, and profitable perspective to the way you view business decisions. But the only constraint is identifying the best software from the dozens of options available in the market.

It is quite overwhelming to choose the best one as the web copy claims and reviews may not be completely reliable. We hope our research helps you in understanding and evaluating the best location intelligence software and location data companies that are most ideal for your business needs. If we have missed out on your favorite location intelligence companies, feel free to mention it in the comment and we’d love to include it in our post!

Author

I am a product marketing associate. I am passionate about creating, managing, and marketing content. In my time off, I have my nose buried in growing my side hustles and binge-watching dinosaur documentaries.

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