Industry Coverage icon

Utilities GIS Digital Use Case Report

Empower digital transformation beyond the knowledge of where.

Unlock a Free Sample

While GIS has been recognized as an invaluable tool, the strategic significance of GIS for utility digital transformation has not been well understood. Utilities lack insights about the modern GIS capabilities and trends to guide the development of a future-proof GIS strategy.

GIS data management – including maintaining data quality, data accuracy, data currency, and data integration standards remains a major challenge.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

GIS is a critical enabler for utilities modernization. Utilities should plan and manage GIS technologies as a program throughout the entire value stream to maximize the value of the investment.

Impact and Result

  • Pull inspiration from a curated collection of best-in-class GIS digital use cases to drive the initiative ideation process.
  • While implementation details will differ, overall concepts can often be helpful in designing transformation roadmaps.
  • Our analysis offers additional guidance on ROI, primary sources of value, and more.
  • Pulling best practices from anonymized use cases increases the odds of successful value capture.

Utilities GIS Digital Use Case Report Research & Tools

1. Utilities GIS Digital Use Case Report – Identify the top GIS digital use cases across the utilities industry.

Introduce a curated list of utility GIS digital use cases to drive inspiration and momentum to establish a GIS strategy supported by a roadmap consisting of value-driven initiatives. This research demonstrates the broad value of GIS capabilities for utilities and offers key learnings and practical guidelines to unlock the potential of GIS

Unlock a Free Sample

Utilities GIS Digital Use Case Report

Empower digital transformation beyond the knowledge of where.

Analyst Perspective

Break down silos and orchestrate advancement together.

The adoption of various geographic information system (GIS) technologies should not occur in isolation among business groups and IT within utility organizations. Exploring GIS digital use cases in the context of utility business capabilities can help break down these silos and demonstrate the interconnection and dependencies of various business capabilities.

Besides the basic use of GIS to map assets and track utility infrastructure, utilities have been exploring different possibilities and new features available for future enhancements. Utilities leaders not only want to know what benefits can be realized but also what challenges exist in maximizing the investment.

This research uses technology and data insights to demonstrate the broad value of GIS capabilities for utilities and offers key learnings and practical guidelines to truly unlock the potential of GIS.

Jing Wu

Jing Wu

Principal Research Director
Utilities, Industry Practice
Info-Tech Research Group

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

The strategic significance of GIS for utility digital transformation is not widely understood despite GIS being recognized as an invaluable tool.

Utilities lack insights about modern GIS capabilities and trends that would help guide the development of a future-proof GIS strategy.

Managing GIS data poses major challenges including maintaining data quality, accuracy, currency, and integration standards.

Common Obstacles

Utility leaders have a limited understanding of the crucial role of GIS and its broad impact on the success of major initiatives.

Utilities with legacy GIS systems have difficulty justifying the need to migrate and upgrade to a modern GIS system.

Utilities demonstrate lack of urgency toward enhancing GIS data management and integration capabilities.

Info-Tech’s Approach

Introduce a curated list of utility GIS digital use cases to drive inspiration and momentum to establish a GIS strategy supported by a roadmap consisting of value-driven initiatives.

Help utility leaders understand and discover future GIS capabilities that can enable major transformative initiatives such as grid modernization and digital twinning.

Provide practical insights from anonymized use cases to increase the odds of success.

Info-Tech Insight

GIS is a critical enabler for modernization of utilities. Utilities should plan and manage GIS technologies as a program throughout the entire value stream to maximize the value of the investment.

GIS has a tremendous impact on value creation for utilities

A geospatially mature utility can develop an integrated approach for deploying advanced GIS capabilities to drive value creation for utilities.

Mapping and Service Provision

Mapping of utilities’ assets and work locations for internal use and external collaborations such as open data forums to promote adoption.

Business Process Modeling

Asset mapping, hydraulic modeling, and load profile modeling are an integral part of efficient maintenance and operations of physical assets.

Analytics and Workflow

Business intelligence and spatial analysis can support data-driven decision making.

Integrated Insights

GIS is no longer a siloed practice. Coordination of work often spans multiple departments such as asset management, outage management, system planning, etc.

Community Engagement

Matured utilities have integrated, collaborated, and shared data across government and other industries while following data security practices.

“Utilities are the second industry that Geospatial Technology can create significant high-value impact following the Transportation industry.”

– GeoBuiz, 2019

Unlock the value of utility location data

The untapped potential of GIS for utilities resides within the interconnected business location data waiting to be explored and integrated into geospatial intelligence.

Location Information

Operations and Maintenance Schedule

  • Location of asset repair and maintenance

Material Inventory

  • Stocked items warehouse location

Customer

  • Customer geographic demographics

Workforce

  • Employee location and route planning

Fleet

  • Utility vehicle and equipment location

Asset Portfolio

  • Address of assets and facilities

Source: GeoBuiz, 2019

The strategic significance of GIS for utilities is not well recognized

xPSD Citywide’s 2022 GIS Maturity Index survey of North American Public Sectors (including public utility organizations) highlighted some common obstacles preventing organizations from accelerating their GIS maturity development.

GIS Strategic Plan

38% have a plan, 18% have a work in progress, and 44% do not have a plan.

A large percentage of organizations (44%) do not have a GIS strategic plan, though most organizations have a formal GIS department. This reflects why the business benefits achieved from GIS programs are relatively low compared to readiness and implementation within the maturity index stats.

GIS Communication Plan

13% have a plan, 18% have a work in progress, and 66% do not have a plan

The benefits and value of a GIS program and data have not been communicated effectively across many organizations (69%). There are few continuous and regular communication plans including training programs. Without an effective communication plan, the impact of GIS-related initiatives often goes unnoticed.

GIS Staff Capacity

41% have sufficient staff, and 59% have insufficient staff.

Lack of resource availability will hinder the delivery of key utility initiatives (59%). Many utilities are struggling with maintaining their current GIS mandates let alone future capability development. How to improve operational efficiency with limited resources becomes a key driver for leveraging technology.

Data challenges inhibit GIS advancement

GIS foundational challenges such as data management and integrations barriers make it difficult to maximize the potential value of data:

33%

Less than one-third of North American public sector organizations (including public utilities) have their GIS data layers catalogued.

19%

Less than one-fifth of North American public sector organizations have a GIS data security policy in place.

Source: PSD Citywide, N=97,2022

“Data is the fuel that drives the GIS engine. You can have the best tools and technologies in the world to analyze data. Unless you have the data you need that is relevant and compatible with the intended use, you are coming up short.”

– Andrew Fox, PhD, PMP
Senior Project Manager,
Timmons Group

GIS digital technology unlocks immense value

Value Added

Augment human-machine interactions

Increase efficiency and streamline GIS-powered asset management operations

Enhance customer/employee experience via GIS-layered data democratization

Improve health and safety of employees

Leverage improved connectivity & computational power

Enable frontline operation visibility via network connectivity

Improve situational awareness from real-time presentation of geographically accurate and physically modeled asset information

Drive decisions through data & analytics

Increase availability and accessibility to integrated, large, and multi-source data sets to support decision making

Enable advanced analytics to automate, augment, and accelerate insight generation

Optimize design & delivery via advanced engineering

Streamline planning, design, construction, and commission lifecycle of vertical and horizontal engineering and construction projects

Improve quality assurance through advanced engineering technologies and techniques

Example GIS Technologies

GIS web portal for data storytelling and collaboration

GIS publishable services for sharing common layers

Autonomous GIS systems for adopting large language models’ generative abilities

Network modeling with real-world details and high data fidelity

High-definition (HD) maps with highly accurate information

GIS mobile app for online and offline data integration

Blockchain for privacy and security

Geospatial analytics powered by cloud computing and artificial intelligence/machine learning

Real-time collection via edge/ Internet of Things like smart transformers/meters/hydrants, etc.

Global navigation satellite system (GNSS)

3D modeling and visualization (generative AI) for spatial contextualization

Extended reality (virtual, augmented, etc.) for immersive experiences

Source: Water Finance & Management, 2023; University of South Carolina, 2023

Info-Tech’s approach and team can help irrespective of where you are in your transformation journey

Info-Tech's approach: Table has examples of how Info-Tech can help depending on where along your transformation journey you are.

Measure the value of this document

Document objective

Highlight best-in-class use cases to spur the initiative planning and ideation process.

Measuring your success against that objective

There are multiple qualitative and quantitative, direct and indirect metrics for which you can measure the progress of your initiative pipeline’s development. Some examples of this are:

  • Increased initiative pipeline value
  • Number of capabilities impacted by initiative pipeline
  • Enhanced understanding of initiatives’ impact aligned to organization’s capability map
  • Better understanding of which sources of value are being addressed or under-addressed in the organization’s initiative pipeline

See Establish Your Transformation Infrastructure in the Digital Transformation Center for more details.

Utilities GIS Digital Use Case Report preview picture

About Info-Tech

Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.

We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.

What Is a Blueprint?

A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.

Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.

Talk to an Analyst

Our analyst calls are focused on helping our members use the research we produce, and our experts will guide you to successful project completion.

Book an Analyst Call on This Topic

You can start as early as tomorrow morning. Our analysts will explain the process during your first call.

Get Advice From a Subject Matter Expert

Each call will focus on explaining the material and helping you to plan your project, interpret and analyze the results of each project step, and set the direction for your next project step.

Unlock Sample Research

Author

Jing Wu

Contributors

  • Eduardo Brambila, IT Director, San Jose Wager Group
  • Totran Mai, GIS Manager, San Jose Wager Group
  • Andrew Fox, Senior Project Manager, Timmons Group
  • Ally Reynolds, Project Manager, Utility Network Lead, Timmons Group
  • Jackson Stoss, GIS Manager, Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority
  • Pete Seth Penttinen, GIS Consultant, Pling Consulting Services
Visit our Exponential IT Research Center
Over 100 analysts waiting to take your call right now: 1-519-432-3550 x2019