GIS has become an essential component of modern life. Traditional uses of GIS for business include geography and cartography. But GIS is expanding far beyond the traditional, spurred on by technological advances that provide easier real-time access to a bounty of geospatial data. In fact, using GIS in business has become mainstream and it’s now easy to find widespread GIS adoption in every business sector. Such organizations—in both the private and public sectors—include municipalities and state governments, utilities and telecommunications providers, railroad and civil engineering firms, and oil and gas and retail companies.

For example, a telecommunications provider might use GIS technology to inform site selection decisions and map out cell tower placement. On the other hand, a retail outlet might use GIS data to analyze product placement across its brick-and-mortar stores, repositioning certain products based on regional interests or to improve efficiency in its supply chain.