Location is a common lens through which we view and understand the world around us. Opening a new store, managing a supply chain, making an investment decision, connecting with a customer in the right place and time – all of these situations are informed by the context of location. Which is why it’s possible to make better and smarter decisions by integrating location data into enterprise operations to gain location intelligence.
When location data and mapping are combined with data from other sources, such as internal customer data, an organization has the potential to vastly improve the customer experience and underlying business processes. In fact, two-thirds of respondents in a Forrester study agreed that location intelligence is important or critical for a wide range of different use cases related to innovation, optimization and customer experience.
While today’s innovative organizations are embracing location intelligence as a competitive differentiator, siloed or inaccessible location data can inhibit intelligence growth. Many organizations are now seeking environments where they can access location data alongside data from multiple other sources. To meet this need for data whenever and wherever customers are, Foursquare has harnessed a flexible approach to location data access. With 550+ integrated partners, our data is always reachable and delivered via preferred sources and formats.
Location Data Wherever You Are
When we say that location matters, that ethos also applies to location data accessibility. It’s important that organizations have the flexibility to access Foursquare location data in the places that are most productive and convenient to them. For years, Foursquare has developed partnerships with leading data aggregators, who act as a central point where data from various sources can be easily accessed, combined, and analyzed.
Organizations can integrate Foursquare data directly into their existing channels via cloud-based data platforms like The Trade Desk, AWS, and Snowflake. These partnerships provide customers with Foursquare’s industry-leading point-of-interest (POI) dataset, Places, in their preferred cloud environments. By avoiding spending time and resources setting up ETL processes, organizations can decrease implementation costs and accelerate time-to-value. Foursquare is committed to strategic enterprise partnerships that allow for ease of use and maximum flexibility.
In our most recent pact, Foursquare teamed up with Databricks to provide direct access to Foursquare location data via the new Databricks Marketplace. Organizations can now integrate location data into their open, multi cloud enabled data architecture. By removing data silos, organizations can easily develop data engineering and machine learning workloads with datasets from multiple trusted sources.
“We’re excited to welcome Foursquare, the leading provider of location data, to the new Databricks Marketplace,” said Jay Bhankharia, Sr. Director, Marketplace Product Partnerships at Databricks. “Location intelligence is increasingly becoming a competitive differentiator for companies – with this partnership, our customers can now access Foursquare’s trusted location data directly from the Databricks Marketplace through Delta Sharing, which offers unparalleled insights into the way people and places interact. Anchored in faster time to insights, the ability to spatially visualize these relationships will help companies create better customer experiences and smarter business outcomes.”
Busting Location Data Silos
Organizations routinely use data from diverse internal and external sources to inform their strategies, plans and operations. When data is unified and accessible, decision-makers at all levels of the organization are empowered to develop a holistic view of how their decisions and actions will impact the company and, most importantly, their customers. But when data is separated and fragmented into silos, the opposite can be true.
Since location is critical to understanding nearly every aspect of business, siloed location data can negatively affect the ability to analyze and segment customers, deliver personalized experiences, and make location-based recommendations. It can also impact financial performance by failing to account for location in investment decisions, site selection, lead generation, and sales enablement.
When teams are able to access important data, when and where they need it, they are able to make smarter decisions about nearly every facet of their operation. The same Forrester report mentioned earlier found that the ability to combine different types of data from different sources (41%) and to provide access to data on a large scale (41%), were two of the most important qualities of a location intelligence strategy.[1]
Flexibility Helps Drive Location Intelligence Sophistication
Location data adoption and spatial visualizations are progressing at a rapid pace, enabling companies to increase their location intelligence sophistication. Below are some ways location intelligence may evolve as organizations integrate better and more robust location data into their operations.
| Industry | Single use case | Sophisticated location intelligence strategy |
| Retail | Identifying new store location | Making in-store recommendationsbased on a customer’s past purchases, known preferences, and location within the store |
| Logistics | Enhanced package delivery tracking | Offering target time windows for delivery, enabling real-time rescheduling of package delivery if no one will be at home to receive it, and using location intelligence to select the retail store or distribution center to hold the product for pickup |
| Finance | New market identification | Make data-driven investment decisions with a comprehensive, accurate, and up-to-date view of the competitive landscape, local market conditions, and other key location-based context gleaned from location data |
As these location-driven initiatives gain traction and sophistication, organizations will become increasingly dependent on reliable access to trusted location data. Location partners offering a flexible approach to data accessibility, like Foursquare, will continue to play a key role in supporting organizations as they transition from deploying single use cases to adopting an enterprise-wide location intelligence strategy.
Learn more about Foursquare and the Databricks Marketplace here.
