What is GIS strategy
The best time for you to start thinking spatially is the moment that you start asking "where." "Where do we locate our office?" "Where are our customers?" "Where are needs being unmet or underserved?" A GIS strategy can help you develop the data, tools, and processes for answering these questions and more.
Having clear goals and expectations will help you choose the right size of investment in GIS - from a relatively simple consumer of GIS data to an enterprise creating and sharing GIS data for others. You don't need to see into the distant future and have everything mapped out perfectly, but you should have some clearly defined agency goals that you are trying to achieve so that you can investigate where GIS can help to achieve those goals.
Spatial champion
Forget fancy maps and data visualizations - the real key to unlocking the power of GIS for your organization is getting someone on board who understands its value. Find someone who sees the potential of using location information to improve decision-making and make them your champion.
Together, we can work with you and your champion to explore how to integrate location analysis into your everyday work processes to solve real problems. Even a simple map showing the current situation can be very helpful. But, the real power of GIS comes from seeing how things change over time and location. This can reveal hidden patterns that can lead to better choices across your organization.
Is your data ready
Spatial analyses begin with spatial data, but this doesn't have to be difficult to create. Does your data contain a street address, a zip code, or something that could connect it to a location or boundary? If so, it's only one small step away from being useful for spatial analysis.
However, other data may need more work to make it spatial. Maybe you have a question that you know involves "where" but it's not clear how your data can be used to answer it. We're happy to help you figure out how to make your data spatial so you can answer your important questions.
Where to start
One of the best ways we've found to get started in GIS is to purchase a subscription to Esri's ArcGIS Online platform , opens in a new tab . This includes access to a wide variety of data, including the SGID on ArcGIS and Esri's Living Atlas , opens in a new tab , along with tools to help you analyze your data , opens in a new tab . After you've analyzed your data, ArcGIS Online provides many different ways to share , opens in a new tab your work with low-code and no-code applications to highlight and bring attention to your results.
ArcGIS Online also allows you to easily share your data with a wider audience (if appropriate), including sharing it with the SGID if it meets our qualifications. The big advantage of ArcGIS Online is that it scales with your agency needs without having to make a huge initial investment in GIS. Reach out to us if you have any questions about joining Utah's preferred spatial data and low-code/no-code platform.
