RoI Information Centre

Building the Business Case for Geospatial Development Projects

General Return on Investment - Books, Articles and Resources
Resource
Treasury Green Book
The Green book is the central point for access to guidance on the financial assessment of spending and investment and to related guidance including the preparation of business cases for the public sector.

Link
How to measure anything: Finding the Value of "Intangibles" in Business, by Douglas W. Hubbard
This book provides guidance on how to measure seemingly intangible benefits. It includes useful sections on problem decomposition, measurement techniques, estimate calibration, adjusting for bias, risk and sensitivity.
Book


Return on Investment on Geospatial Development Projects - Books, Articles and Resources
 

The Value of Geospatial Information to Local Public Service Delivery in England and Wales                                                       This study presents the first assessment of the value of geospatial information undertaken on a national basis (covering England and Wales) using proven economic modelling techniques. The study looked at local public service providers including local authorities, emergency services and local health services. it includes many case studies where cost-benefit cases have been established, providing a wealth of examples to illustrate possible savings in services from transport, information management, health and social services.

Link
Show me the Money: Making the CEO Listen, by Andrew Coote and Keith Wishart, AGI Conference 2007
This article argues that the geospatial industry has been very poor historically at presenting the business case for projects in objective and compelling terms. It provides a methodology for approaching business case development and presents a number of examples.

 PDF
The Business benefits of GIS: An ROI approach, by Maguire, Kouyoumjian and Smith, ESRI Press
This book presents a methodology for building a business case for an existing or planned GIS implementation from preparation, through business prioritisation to benefits estimation and report presentation.

Link
International Workshop on Spatial Data Infrastructures' Cost-Benefit/Return on Investment, European Commission, Joint Research Centre
This report is the result of an international workshop to examine the state of the art in assessing the business case for spatial data infrastructures and includes contributions from many of the leading experts from across the world.

Link
Return on Investment: The Key to GIS Implementation, by David Holdstock, Geographic Technologies Group
This article argues that the business benefits of GIS are maximized through careful planning, design and implementation, along with some coaching, cajoling and deft salesmanship.

Link
Business Cases and Studies Relating to Projects with a Geospatial Component

Addressing Environmental Sustainability Locally, by Gesche Schmid, Earthzine
This article gives examples of the use of geographic information in the delivery of environmental services by English local authorities to reduce costs and contribute to a sustainable environment by the reduction of emissions and waste.




      Link
Impact Assessment of Transposition of the INSPIRE Directive (2007), by Ian Greenwood - Defra                                This paper discusses the economic benefits of the introduction of the INSPIRE Directive, in a very financially focused manner and is a good example of how such studies should be presented.

PDF

Improved service delivery through avoidable contact, South Tyneside Council
The article describes how South Tyneside Council used web mapping services to improve efficiency with measurable savings by enabling citizens to gain access to information through the internet and reducing contacts by phone and visits.

PDF

Understanding the value and benefits of establishing and running a local information system                                       This comprehensive study uses local information systems in 12 local authorities to demonstrate the substantive savings in time and money that can be attributed to better decision making.

Link
Business Case Development and Return on Investment Research Project for Geospatial Information Technology, Robert M. Samborski, 2006

Link
Building Information Modelling (BIM), BSI Group Investors Report
Building Information Modelling or BIM is a technology that brings with it a new way of working. Companies that adopt BIM can benefit from its streamlined approach, in which data is shared in a collaborative environment.
Link

Countywide Integrated Waste and Recycling Collection Service: Northamptonshire Waste Partnership                                 The savings that can be achieved by route optimisation of the service in terms of fuel reductions, captial expensiture on vehicles and more effcient use of labour are dramatically described in this case study.                                                     

PDF

National Land and Property Gazetteer - Case Studies in efficiency from Data Sharing
This link provides access to a number of case studies within the NLPG awards.


Link
The Minneapolis Star-Tribune's ROI on using GIS, Journal of Analytic Journalism
The regional newspaper managed to show a Return on Investment in under three months using logistics software based on GIS to optimise routes and delivery points for newspapers.

Link
Delivering a new dimension in Risk Management at Royal and Sun Alliance
This is a vendor case study from ESRI (UK) outlining the business benefits of introducing their GIS platform for Insurance.

Link

Sources Of Case Studies


AGI - Suppliers SIG case study database

Link
GITA (Geospatial Information & Technology Association) database (USA)

Link
UK Location Strategy (Defra)
Link