This got me thinking about the reasons why this might be the case. I think it has a lot to do with the ubiquity of digital maps in our lives, the merging of the personal and the professional, and the power of pictures over tabular data.
In our personal lives, most of us have smartphones, tablets, or desktop computers where we are used to interrogating a map in order to find information we need. Mapping applications on these devices provide an easy way to ask questions such as where the good restaurants in a are; we then get a map on which we can drill through, zoom or pan to refine or get more detailed answers.
In their professional lives as well, risk and safety managers frequently try to get answers from their risk management information systems that make reference to geographic terms. These questions may include the following:
And the list can go on. Since these questions are framed in geographic terms, it only makes sense that risk and safety managers would want to explore and analyze their data by viewing it on a map.
An interactive mapping tool integrated into the business intelligence application for a RMIS provides an ideal solution for risk and safety managers to answer these questions.
Many of the questions above, and other questions important to risk and safety managers, make reference to data elements that would typically be calculated through a business intelligence or reporting application. For example, loss rates, average litigation costs and year-over-year trends in claim costs or property values are normally calculated dynamically and displayed through a business intelligence application.
Integrating an interactive map within your business intelligence application rather than building or relying on a standalone mapping application makes a lot of sense. The data for the important questions the risk manager needs to answer will already be available in the business intelligence application. There is no need to recalculate the values or re-do any work. The mapping application will then merely be a plug-in to your existing infrastructure; it will add the visual, interactive, and intuitive experience we are all accustomed to from the mapping applications we use in our personal lives.
Such an application will allow you to do the following:
As an example, the graphic below shows clearly through the color scheme which geographic areas have a higher claim frequency. Just imagine any type of metric that is important to you in the dropdown and you will realize that almost anything in your data can be viewed geographically--allowing you to immediately grasp patterns in the data.
Taking things a level deeper, you may wish to see how locations within your organization compare on work-related incidence rates. The graphic below shows how the use of simple pushpins with red-yellow-green color coding can make your trouble spots stand out; methods of exploring map data such as zooming, panning and hovering over points can be deployed to get answers to important questions.
In deploying this application, I am finding that almost any traditional report used in risk management information software can be refashioned into an interactive, visually compelling geographic map. The days of pivot tables and pie charts are certainly not over, but geographic mapping provides an extremely valuable supplement to traditional risk reporting.
Mark LeVeque is a Product Consultant with Aon eSolutions, based in the Atlanta office. Contact Mark at mark.leveque@aon.com