New-tilities is a new term which refers to the changing world confronting electric cooperatives. Major technology trends are revolutionizing the electric utility industry. New opportunities are being created and threats to the old way of doing business. Electric coop are wrestling with change. GIS or geographic information systems is at the centre of these changes. New developments in GIS are making it easier for electric coops to better manage their organizations. In this article we will dig a little deeper.

New-tilities: GIS and Overcoming the Challenges faced by Electric Cooperatives

What is GIS?

GIS is a system which provides ways to visualize and analyse business critical data geographically. There are 3 core pieces to a GIS:

1. Centralized Authoritative Data

In simple terms GIS provides a central, single source of coop mission critical data. One place to look for asset data for example: poles, fuses, transformers, switches, substations etc

2. Maps

Maps provide an intuitive way to visualize, explore and search for organizational data. Maps are a key output from a GIS. Show me the location of pole x, share outage information for the public on a map etc. Below we have located an asset, the pop up shows the associated data.

Its time again to revisit maps. In the surprisingly popular blog post “Please stop calling me the mapping guy” I took exception at being pigeon-holed. I (we) are far more valuable to organizations than simply being seen as producers of maps. We are solution providers. Maps are simply a key output from our work: intuitive and easy to understand. In this post I will broaden the conversation.

Our GIS Emphasis Should be Business Outcomes not Maps

What are business outcomes? There are 5 key components:

1. Profitable growth
2. Customer engagement
3. Business sustainability
4. Productivity
5. Business agility

Five words: growth, engagement, sustainability, productivity, agility. Technology is a key driver behind business outcomes. Innovative organizations are looking for competitive advantages; how to do things better, more efficiently, faster. Business outcomes are not applicable just to private companies, all organizations are focused on improvement.

GIS should be one of the core technology drivers behind business outcomes. It should be a mission-critical business system. And yet adoption remains slow. Why?