The smart guideto selecting alocation platform
10 key considerations to help
your business navigate location
technology providers

If you are searching for ways to improvebusiness outcomes by infusing youroperations with location intelligence,
it’s easy to get lost.
Perhaps you’re trying to understand what
data, tools and services are the right fit
for your company, or which vendors will
help you differentiate your products andaccelerate your time to market. And, all
the while, total cost is a constant concern.
These considerations are important, alongwith the dozens of questions you might
have around implementation barriers

for location technology, application andcloud platform integration, data accuracy
and regulatory compliance.
With the right knowledge, you can avoid
solutions that don’t scale, harm yourdata integrity or require skills yourorganization doesn’t have.
This guide features ten areas every
innovator and executive should consider
before selecting a location solution.

Assess your needs forlocation intelligence
Many organizations respond to problems and drive
short-term ROI by focusing their investments andresources on mature technologies such as cloud,applications that automate tasks and analytics.

Depending on the industry and the businessproblem at hand, a location technology platformneeds to give access to the right level of tools fordata or service consumption.

Understanding data has never been more
important yet, for many, location data remains anuntapped reservoir. Adding the context of location
shines a spotlight on areas you couldn’t see
before, enabling process efficiencies, enhancing
employee satisfaction and improving customer
experiences. Location-based data and services
can also be used to connect and supply context
to disparate data sets and tackle common
business challenges.

There are a tremendous number of potential use
cases for location data. First, you must determine
which business challenges you’re looking to solve.
If you’re still experimenting with location data,
focus on established use cases.
A fundamental objective of a location technology
platform is to “shift right” the focus of customers.
This means when you solve location-relatedproblems, you unlock new insights that allow you to
overcome larger business problems down the line.

Location technology can address a wide range of pressing
business challenges, including:

3Reducing the risk ofa data privacy breachfor users when sharing
location data

Creating richer
customerexperiences

Improving operational
efficiency

Enhancing businessmodels through cloud
platform capabilities

Breaking down
data silos

Improvingdata quality

Accelerating innovationand development oflocation-centric products

Gaining actionableinsights fromyour data

Want to talk? We do, too. Get in touch here.

Completeness, flexibility
and scalability
Taking location intelligence to the next level
requires increasing both the volume of data andthe types of tools that you have available fordata analysis. But, sourcing accurate and up-todate location data with enough depth, detail andgeographical coverage to scale can be difficult.

A one-size-fits-all or a take-it-or-leave-it offering
for software developers will not suffice. Instead,
you must look for a platform that enables easy
access to external data for users and allows maps,
algorithms and services to be customized to fit
specific business needs.

Buying teams need to carefully assess thecompleteness of the location data needed
to enable a use case or meet the projectrequirements. For enterprises that want todifferentiate their products and services,
flexibility is needed for the design anddeployment of maps, services and applications.

Last but not least, scalability is crucial. Why?
Because scale is important for expanding theapplicability and geographical reach of a productor service along with advanced analytics andmachine learning.

“Our vendor provides a platform with scale that gives us
access to new types of information that we can use toimprove the weather forecast. The combined technologiesof the platform and the GWC RoadWX, offers customers
a solution that scales to meet their global requirements
for accurate road weather forecast data.”
Mark Flolid, CEO, Global Weather Corporation

4

Want to talk? We do, too. Get in touch here.

Data and service
quality
Ensuring data quality is undeniably fundamental.
Bad data leads to poor decision-making which canthen diminish brand value and customer trust.
Gartner’s Magic Quadrant customer reference
survey shows that organizations estimate
the average cost of poor data quality at $12.9
million every year. This number is likely to riseas business environments become increasingly
digitized and complex. As data quality is seen as amandatory aspect of every business, data quality
solutions are in greater demand and are often
embedded into critical business applications suchas CRM and ERP.1
As organizations start to make sense of data fromconnected devices, the accuracy and reliability oflocation services is critical. Big data presents anopportunity, but only for organizations with thecapacity to aggregate, understand and leverage it.

For location data in particular, the notion of quality
is multi-dimensional. A few things to ponder:
1. How accurate is my location-centric data?
Is this object on the map at the right location inreality? Does it possess sub-meter accuracy?
2. What variables, such as who, where, and when,need the most accurate information? How
accurate is your current data? Does the data
originate from a source you can trust?
3. What is the specification of the location-centric
data sets? If location data is coded against a
standard specification then it is more userfriendly. By using a good quality data set,users can bypass the issue of low accuracy
and inconsistent coverage.
4. Events such as weather or traffic may impact
the movement, behavior or functioning of aperson or device over time. For this reason, it isimportant to assess how often the data is updated
and if the location-based services meet enterprisegrade service level requirements.

86%

86% of executive believe thatwithin three years using external
data will be a critical competency
for any enterprise.2

1

Gartner: Magic Quadrant for Data Quality Solutions, July 2020
2

5Want to talk? We do, too. Get in touch here.

IDC, Data as a Service Survey, 2019

Data privacy, security
and compliance
Ensuring data security, privacy and regulatorycompliance is paramount, but how do you
know that you’re doing it effectively?
Regulatory compliance isn’t only about GDPRand CCPA. Data sources and ecosystem partners
are central to an organization’s data governance.
Location data should come from a vendor you
trust and the data or services should meet legal
and regulatory requirements.

Select a vendor that adheres to “privacy-bydesign” principles and proves that their dataand services can be trusted. Capabilities suchas anonymization, consent management, dataprivacy and risk quantification should be integral
elements of any location platform offering.
For organizations that don’t get it right, theconsequences of privacy breaches go beyond
monetary fines to reputation damage and aloss of customer trust.

Vendors elevating their trust credentials canuse this to differentiate. Give enterprises
and consumers more control over theirdata, whether or not regulations require
it. Transparency and simplicity are key –navigating data privacy should not be alabyrinth for customers.336

Want to talk? We do, too. Get in touch here.

Omdia, 2020 Location Platform Index

Data exchange and monetization
through a marketplace
As digital transformation fuels the demandfor data across industries and ecosystems,
business leaders are seizing the opportunity tocommercialize or monetize their data. Conversely,
for organizations that are seeking to acquire data
to augment or enrich their own data sets, thebreadth and depth of Data as a Service (DaaS)
offerings have never been this vast.
Without a common denominator such as location,these data sets may lack contextual relevance andcannot easily be merged or mashed with otherdata. This is especially relevant for organizations
where location is key.

51%

Business leaders need to move quickly to form,or at least participate in, ecosystems to monetize
their data. To begin, organizations need toestablish the right tools, processes, architecturesand governance to ensure quality, usability
and IP management.
To save time, resources and investments, you
can leverage the tools, capabilities and market
reach of an already established location
data-centric marketplace.

In 2019, 51% of global data
and analytics businessdecision-makers reportedselling or sharing their data,
up from 32% in 2016.4

47

Want to talk? We do, too. Get in touch here.

Forrester, Data Commercialization: A CIO’s GuideTo Taking Data To Market, March 2020

Ease of useand deployment
Usability is different for every company. Therefore,businesses should thoroughly assess their team’s
level of knowledge and expertise. Developers of all
kinds – from novices to experts – require different
solutions for success.
Businesses should aim to use a location platformthat can solve their specific location challenges
easily and provide the collaboration tools required
to help facilitate processes, streamline workflows
and improve user performance.

A platform’s ease of use wouldn’t be complete
without considering its availability to open sourcecomponents such as Python, Apache Spark, Jupyter
notebooks and more. The advantages with open
source components are undisputable; from lower
costs, to access, to innovation and a cultureof collaboration. But perhaps one of the mostimportant benefits is extensive customization.
Through open sourced software, developers
can easily customize the software, add extra
functionalities or remove unnecessary parts tomeet specific business requirements.

“The infrastructure provided through the location platform isa big part of the value we deliver as a partner. The platform
saved us a lot of time, effort and resources we’d otherwise
have to expend developing everything ourselves.
On the security side, things like the integrity of the data andthe monitoring of the computational resources, are definitely
not our core competence. We depend on our partner for that.”
Predrag Pucar, CEO, NIRA Dynamics

8Want to talk? We do, too. Get in touch here.

Total cost ofownership
When it comes to location technology platforms,
there are many ways to reduce your total cost ofownership. Streamlining your development efforts
is one of the most impactful ways to reduce costs.
Most current development approaches are
fragmented and time consuming and customers
need multiple vendors to get what they need.
Accessing diverse data sets and services throughone unified platform can reduce the application’s
development costs significantly.
Examples of location-centric capabilities in thiscontext include data enrichment, development,
mapping, data analytics, data visualization,
service and application creation, monetization,
data privacy and security.

70%

The total cost of ownership can also be kept
in check when teams continuously work with
open source tools and components within thelocation platform. Examples include open source
programming languages (e.g. Python), notebooks(e.g. Jupyter), data management platforms (e.g.
Apache Spark) and frameworks (e.g. SparkML).
Another option is the monetization of data andservices. Many businesses are shifting from a“build from scratch” to an “off the shelf” mentality
when analyzing revenue margins and looking tominimizing development costs.

By 2023, 70% of G2000 companies
will have metrics in place toevaluate value realized from data,
enabling them to optimize internal
resource allocation decisions acrossthe enterprise.5

59Want to talk? We do, too. Get in touch here.

IDC, Worldwide Data Integration and Analytics 2020 Predictions,
Doc # US44802519, Dec. 2019To Market, March 2020

Talent, skills
and expertise
Because location data is useful across a broad
range of use cases, your stakeholders may
include a wide scope of users.
The amount of talent and expertise across yourorganization may vary, so assessing your internal
users and tools can help guide you to a platformthat meets your needs.
A quality location platform should provide tools
and self-service features that cater to different
levels of technical and location expertise.

A location platform needs to enable the launchof location-based data products and services inmonths — not years — without location experts.
All the while, it must provide access to training,user guides and other resources so new users
can be onboarded fast.
Even with many of the necessary skills in-house,
the coordination of the entire ecosystem is still
a complex operation, which is why organizations
increasingly rely on technology partnerships.

“We can’t work as separate businesses. We have to leverageeach other’s knowledge and data because telematics databy itself means nothing.
With location context, we can deliver value,
and that’s why we partner.”
Ivan Shornikov, CEO, Raxel Telematics

10

Want to talk? We do, too. Get in touch here.

Cloud, Multi-Cloud, Hybridand On-Premise
Each industry has vastly different needs froman architectural solution perspective, therefore
a location platform that enables a simplified
and speedy deployment of applications is animportant proposition.
Enterprises have almost entirely embraced
multi-cloud, with 93% of enterprises deploying
a multi-cloud strategy today, of which 87% ofenterprises taking a hybrid approach, combining
the use of both public and private clouds.6
By choosing multiple cloud providers, you can takeadvantage of the best parts of each providers’services, mixing and matching to suit your needs.
Multi-cloud may be ideal for multinationalorganizations that have different regional needs.

While most location-based services are provided
from the public cloud, there are several reasons
why enterprises would want to use an on-premise
deployment. The principal motives are data
security, regulatory compliance, cost containment
and assured performance.
While on-premise may have additional hardware andsoftware requirements, it’s ideal for use cases suchas geocoding and reverse geocoding. On-premise or
hybrid clouds can address the needs of enterprises
in multiple sectors, helping to improve customer
experiences and protect valuable assets.
To maximize the benefits of a location platform,
be sure to evaluate your current architecture andprioritize the features that are most important.

“The location intelligence that we receive fromour vendor is really powerful for us.
In combination with the data that we derive fromour own services, as well as other data from otherpartners in the ecosystem, we can deliver a higher
level of service, a higher level of insight, and ahigher level of impact to our customers.”
Michael Phillippi, VP of Technology at Lytx

611

Want to talk? We do, too. Get in touch here.

Flexera 2020 State of the Cloud reportPerformance andservice-level agreements (SLA)
When we talk about cloud performance it’s
crucial to determine the platform SLAs. Not all
providers are equal and performance may depend
on a business’ unique needs and geographic
regions of interest. This makes certain players
more attractive when they provide data
centers strategically positioned in key regions
while assuring low latency levels. It becomes
crucial for those customers developing criticalapplications in need to minimize risks associatedwith delays in data transfer and speed ofperformance for last mile.
Ideally, a location platform should leveragea global infrastructure to allow widespread
deployment, especially when serving
international customers.

A customer should be able to choose their “highperformant” features, as well as create flexible
configurations. Depending on the SLA, flexible
configurations could range from acceptable tohigh performant levels, such as 99.9%. This means
different SLAs should be offered for different
application needs at various costs.
For example, for emergency services or driversafety applications the continuous availabilityof services is critical, followed by the need forhigh performance services. A travel application,on the other hand, that provides travelers withan enhanced sightseeing experience would
benefit from reduced costs associated with amore standard SLA.

SLAs with any location platform
should contain 5 major components:
Service access and availability

Usually uptime as a percentage 99.9%

Response time

How quickly information can be retrieved fromthe platform, read and query SLA equates to
99.5% standard and 99.9% premiumService capacity

Clear guidelines on how the services are able toscale globally to meet the need of the customer’sbusiness standard 98.5%, premium 99.9%

12

Want to talk? We do, too. Get in touch here.

Remediation policies andpenalties/incentives

How issues should be resolved and in whattime period, what compensation is available,
the process for logging and claiming, etc.

Exclusions and caveats

Listing terms that clearly define
the scope of the SLA

At HERE, we believe location
moves the world forward.
That’s why we’re committed to helping you navigate your selection
journey. With these considerations you’ll be able to make the mostinformed decision for your company’s needs.
Transform your business, avoid common pain points and maximize
the value of your data with location technology.

Ready to become a location-enabled enterprise?
Start your journey.

Discover why industry analysts named
us as a location platform provider forthe third year running.

Contact us directly and talk with oneof our location technology experts
to help you map out your course.

→ Counterpoint, Location Platforms EffectivenessEvaluation Scorecard, April 2020
→ Strategy Analytics, Location Platform
Benchmark Scores, January 2020
→ Omdia Location Platform Index, June 2020

Contact HERE

HERE, a location data and technology platform, moves people, businesses and cities forward by harnessing the powerof location. By leveraging our open platform, we empower our customers to achieve better outcomes – from helping a citymanage its infrastructure or a business optimize its assets to guiding drivers to their destination safely. To learn more about
HERE, including our new generation of cloud-based location platform services, visit 360.here.com and www.here.com.
© 2020 HERE