Frustration with Facebook and Google’s online advertising “duopoly,” which accounted for 63% of all U.S. digital ad revenue in 2017, is leading digital marketers to search for alternative ad-tech solutions. What firms, agencies, and departments are looking for is an agnostic platform that can process different types of location data, and especially mobile data, in order to design, deploy, and determine performance of geomarketing campaigns.

First used in the late 1800’s, Isochrone Maps, which depict the transport times in every direction from a distinct point, have long been an important component in the business analyst’s toolbox. But with modern data streams and Location Intelligence, a deeper understanding of customer travel and activity can be had using catchment areas derived from mobility data.

For the modern city looking to improve its mobility infrastructure and assess traffic systems, modern, real-time data streams are a powerful tool. A now-ubiquitous navigation tool, Waze’s real-time traffic data can provide key insights to urban data scientists and planners.

Although the landscape has drastically transformed over the last decade, retail analytics have not kept pace which is causing some retailers to close the wrong store locations. McKinsey reports that many retailers rely on “four-wall economics” to assess store performance when they should be using consumer behavior insights extracted from location data with spatial analysis. And where McKinsey finds geospatial analytics most valuable is in “helping retailers make better decisions about expanding or contracting their store network.”

Vodafone, one of the world’s leading telcos, will provide a series of pioneering solutions to optimize the management of MTV Music Week Bizkaia through advanced location analytics and IoT technology.

Founded in 1974, the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development is a coalition of community groups that aims to ensure affordable and equitable housing and neighborhoods for all New Yorkers. Created using CARTO.js and pulling in open data from multiple sources, they hope the latest version of their Displacement Alert Map (DAP Map) will equip organizers, decision makers, and others with a tool to visualize, understand, and hopefully take action to fight housing displacement.

When Amazon announced its acquisition of Whole Foods for $13.1 billion dollars last year analysts speculated on what impact the “Amazon Effect” would have on grocery retail. However, Bloomberg reports that the merger’s biggest impact was in the number of mergers and partnerships among competitors reacting to the news. The first half of 2018 saw record breaking merger and acquisition activity with U.S. based deals valued at an astounding $1.03 trillion dollars.

For retailers, there is nothing more important than a clear, data-driven picture of store health. Whether you are a C-level executive looking at the big picture to identify macro-level trends, a corporate analyst investigating the complex identifiers of store success within a particular region, or a store manager making sure that your location is missing no opportunity to boost sales, site monitoring should be a top-to-bottom organizational priority.

The logistics industry is under increasing pressure thanks to rising costs, a shrinking labor force, and unrealistic customer expectations for priority deliveries. Even Amazon is not immune to these changes. Between 2015 and 2017 the ecommerce retailer’s shipping costs skyrocketed from $11.5 billion to $21.7 billion.

In the age of Amazon, differentiation on quality and service isn’t enough for retailers looking to not only survive but thrive. In order to compete in a narrowing retail landscape, retailers need to start competing with Amazon and other ecommerce giants on convenience as well.