Location Is Value: Spatial and Business Modeling Integration

Abstract

A business model describes the rationale of how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value. Value proposition seeks to solve customer problems and satisfy their needs. All organizations, no matter they are pure business or public bodies, have their own business model to serve their customers. For example, all the people who live in a municipality are its customers and benefit from its value. The municipality has its own business model to create, deliver, and capture value not only for all the people who live there, but for all those doing business, tourists, etc. Spatial modeling on the other side assists users in the process of decision-making and helps them solve any type of spatial problem. Since 2009 location data from millions of people holding devices in their hands is being accumulated and analyzed. One of the greatest sources of data today are not the geospatial datasets of the companies, but the ordinary people. Crowds now have the power to capture, store, and even analyze spatial data and all that could be explained by one word, which emerged just 12 years ago—crowdsourcing. This changed in an amazing way even the most traditional business models, created new ones and shaped whole industries.