Non-intrusive Techniques for Enhancing Decentralized Data Storage with Strategic GIS Visualization

The benefits offered by graphic visualizations of spatial data are difficult to reap when that data is physically distributed throughout an organization. If rank-and-file employees maintain addresses of clients on their personal workstations, for instance, it is impossible for strategic decision-makers to analyze this data en masse. Converting the entire organization to a centralized system would of course enable the strategic analysis. But this involves a number of drawbacks: devoting hours of employee time to training on a new system; costly and possibly error-prone data migration; and the disruption of the workflow already in place for individual workers. In this paper, we present a completely open-source GIS solution deployed in actual practice that offers spatial visualization of distributed address data without disturbing current business practices. We describe how this approach can be adapted to other settings, and give practical tips for practitioners.