What Is Location Analytics?
Location analytics uses data from network devices to help extract insights about end-user productivity and efficiency. It collects environmental, contextual, and behavioral data from smart building infrastructure and IoT (Internet of Things) devices.
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Why is location analytics needed?
The potential uses for location analytics are increasing all the time. Companies are using it to promote safety in their environments and to create connected experiences that involve both physical and digital presence.
Within physical spaces, technology can help businesses optimize for safety, user experience, sustainability, and business success. In times shaped by the world health crisis, organizations are placing high importance on maintaining safe environments for people in offices and public spaces.
Real-time data about where people and devices are located and how they're behaving can also help organizations to provide better experiences for the people using their spaces and to keep track of critical assets.
In addition, new technologies such as ultrafast wireless connectivity, artificial intelligence (AI) image analysis, and advanced sensors have added new methods for asset tracking, environmental control, and understanding customer behavior.
Since business competition is increasingly tied to technology, location analytics provides many ways for organizations to differentiate themselves in competitive markets. Physical spaces have untapped potential to drive business success.
What are the main features of location analytics?
Interoperability
Historically, organizations have applied location analytics only to specific business functions and audiences. Newer location analytics platforms aim to solve this problem by making data from all devices and systems available for use by others in an organization.
To increase access to data, location analytics uses IoT technology to connect separate systems. An office window shade might be controlled not just by temperature and light sensors but also by sensors for foot traffic and device usage in the space.
The true potential of location analytics will be fulfilled through software that brings together all location analytics functions, including those from multiple vendors, in a single management interface.
Data collection
At the heart of location analytics is data collected from LANs (local-area networks), environmental sensors, cameras, network equipment, devices such as RFID tags, motion sensors, and telemetry. The data collection is especially beneficial for tracking locations of devices—such as during an inventory of equipment that is distributed across a hospital complex.
Analysis
Once data is collected, it's analyzed and subjected to algorithms or rules designed to promote certain business, safety, or environmental outcomes. For example, patterns identified in customer foot traffic at a retail store could lead to rearrangement of product displays to increase sales.
Customization
Organizations can use their location analytics solutions to create unique content, such as posting real-time statistics on digital signage, based on insights gathered, or pushing custom content to a mobile device. In some cases, the benefits of location analytics may come from applying long-term insights, such as the use of foot-traffic data to redesign a retail space.
Use cases for location analytics
Safety and compliance
Through proximity sensing, registries, density thresholds, and notifications, location analytics can help users monitor and control sizes of groups of people, provide data for contact tracing, and enhance security.
Asset management
Location analytics uses RFID and other tracking sensors to track equipment or other high-value items across stores, campuses, or other locations. One result is a real-time, mapped inventory.
Wayfinding
Wayfinding uses location tracking and pushed mapping content to help customers, event attendees, and employees navigate office and event spaces.
Seamless onboarding
Location analytics can give users more-customized mobile experiences as they connect to a network. For example, customers' splash-screen content may change to be relevant as they move through various parts of a location.
Personalization
Location analytics can deliver personalized content based on user location, profile, loyalty status, and other parameters so that guests and customers have a more positive experience.
Behavioral insights
Data collected by location analytics can be aggregated and analyzed for a broad range of domains, such as market research, human resources, real estate planning and management, and operations.
Environmental control
Many HVAC systems now connect to the network, making it possible for these systems to integrate and share data with a large number of sources. These improvements can help to reduce costs and enhance flexibility and responsiveness.
Optimized manufacturing
Data collected along the manufacturing chain can be combined with other data streams to deliver insights that help to increase efficiencies and productivity and to inform future planning and provisioning.
Industry applications
Corporate offices
Location analytics supports seamless network onboarding and handoffs, which are important for workers who need to stay connected to applications as they move around office spaces and campuses. It can also provide data for use in identity management and multi-factor authentication.
Hospitality
Location analytics can enable contactless experiences and transactions, providing greater health safety and more convenient interactions for customers and staff. It can also be used to help manage occupancy, access, cleaning, and HVAC controls.
Healthcare
Location analytics is the technology that hospitals use to gain meaningful, real-time data and movement patterns on patients, care teams, and visitors. It can also be used to keep track of valuable assets, such as mobile x-ray units and pharmaceutical carts.
Retail
Location analytics can help deliver the dynamic, contextual, connected shopping and loyalty experiences that today's customers expect. Detailed behavioral data such as foot-traffic information can yield valuable insights for store design, merchandising, and product placement.
Education
Location analytics can produce a wealth of data for analyzing student performance and improving learning environments.
Manufacturing
Since factories are already making use of IoT technology, location analytics can help reveal untapped synergies among systems and can use data in new ways to improve process control, assembly-line tracking, inventory management, and worker safety.