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Home > Blog > Three common reasons not to automate your geospatial data
processes


THREE COMMON REASONS NOT TO AUTOMATE YOUR GEOSPATIAL DATA PROCESSES

September 10, 2021

Be it because the pandemic has taken a toll on their budget, the labour shortage
is throwing a wrench in their recruitment plans, or demand for geospatial data
is on the rise, it is clear that GIS leaders are constantly being asked to do
more with less.

There are many possible solutions to these challenges, and ways to boost both
the performance of your geomatics team and the efficiency of your organization
as a whole. Our experience shows that automating time-consuming tasks and
processes can bring you quick returns on a very reasonable investment.

We often hear the same reasons not to improve the way geomatics teams do things,
and they end up standing in the way of this vital function playing the strategic
role it deserves, especially at a time when the demand for geospatial data is
ever-growing. 

Let’s take a closer look at these arguments:


1. WE ARE TOO BUSY WITH OUR OPERATIONS.

Automation is an excellent strategy to get the most out of your department’s
performance but, unfortunately, many decision makers are mired in day-to-day
operations. They don’t have the time to take a step back to look at the big
picture, and they often can’t see any clear solutions to improve their
efficiency.

The only way to get out of this vicious cycle is to take drastic action and free
up some time to examine the situation. No need for an exhaustive analysis at
this point—just start with a detailed diagram of the processes that are taking
up most of your, and your team’s, time. After a few hours, you will most likely
notice redundant, low value-added tasks that are holding your team back from the
next level.



2. My budget for the years has run out.

Many organizations base their budget on the budgets from previous years, and
depend on their managers’ ability to keep proper documentation. This is even
more true when expenses and investments are frozen or reduced.

This is yet another situation that tends to trap GIS managers in a vicious
cycle. The way out of this bind is to find the time and be smart about carving a
place for yourself in the strategic conversations about budget allocation. For
example, using a discretionary budget to complete a simple automation project
that yields quick results is a first step toward getting a more generous budget.

3. It can be hard to show the ROI.

The third reason largely overlaps with the first, in terms of never having
enough time to find potential avenues for improvement. But even when managers
are able to define multiple possibilities for automation, it can be difficult
for them to accurately gauge the effort required to pull them off. To a lesser
extent, some also have difficulty clearly quantifying the benefits for the
organization.

Here, we don’t have any miraculous advice to help you assess the effort that
needs to go into creating automations. We know from experience that talking to
your peers and associations can be a good starting point. By comparing your
situation with someone else’s, you can sometimes arrive at a sophisticated
assessment using a good old rule of thumb.


THE SECRET: DOWN WITH THE STATUS QUO

As GIS data processing specialists, we know that, very often, all it takes is a
good amount of willpower and a modest professional services budget to create a
virtuous cycle, and the results just might surprise you.

A pragmatic, collaborative approach will allow you to draw up a realistic
roadmap and prioritize projects by the effort they require and their impact on
the organization. You will also be able to define achievable objectives, phase
by phase, project by project.

This approach is one possible strategy to break the oppressive inertia of the
status quo. Once you do that, one successful project will lead to the next and,
gradually, your work will afford you a certain visibility. This will in turn
bring you projects to be led with new departments and, ultimately, you will
position your GIS team as a strategic asset for a more efficient, more smoothly
run organization.

Need some inspiration? Here are few common examples of automation to inspire
you:

 * Updating ArcGIS Online (AGOL) layers;
 * Integrating and processing data from regulatory bodies;
 * Publishing open data;
 * Integrating data from web services (weather, accidents, etc.);
 * Generating daily reports, dashboards, etc.

Consortech has led hundreds of automation projects over the years, and our team
of experts is always excited to talk about automation—we truly are passionate
about what we do! Our team will share their experience, ask you all the right
questions and leverage all of the industry’s best practices to help you
fine-tune your analysis.

We hope you are now able to see that there are solutions available for any
manager to get successful results. You just have to want to put in some time,
and maybe use some of your discretionary budget.


WANT TO AUTOMATE YOUR PROCESSES OR TALK ABOUT YOUR OPTIONS?

CONTACT OUR TEAM

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