Placer.ai, ESRI Form Analytics Partnership
What do you get when you cross a location-analytics company with a company that uses sophisticated geographic-information system (GIS) technology?
It’s no joke, and this isn’t a punchline: Placer.ai and ESRI have formed a partnership to provide advertisers and their partners with new and advanced analytics and insight. The goal is to get deeper insights about revenue potential of physical store locations using geography and analytics.
Placer.ai President and co-founder Koby Ben-Zvi says business decision makers in the retail space can use these combined mapping capabilities to better visualize data, including as it relates to potential foot traffic of a desired location.
The partnership is about more than just better data visualization. “The unique element with this partnership is the decision to jointly explore ways in which ESRI’s geospatial intelligence can be combined with Placer.ai’s location analytics to upgrade the way users of both solutions currently operate,” said Ben-Zvi. “Both products are being used daily by thousands of customers to enhance the way businesses and organizations operate in the physical world. Enhancing the tools available will have a direct impact on the types of decisions that can be made, and the strategies deployed.”
The partnership centers around combining the unique attributes that both companies bring to the market. ESRI is the global leader in geospatial intelligence and mapping capabilities. Placer.ai brings the most robust and reliable location analytics. Combining these two perspectives gives added power to the data itself and added purpose to the visualization. It breaks down the boundaries of what was possible before.
Data visualization is nothing new, but Ben-Zvi said that what decision makers see in this new type of data visualization enables them to go beyond foot traffic in a physical location.
“From a pure visualization perspective, ESRI is the industry standard and has been pushing the boundaries of what is possible for decades,” he said. “Channeling industry-leading analytics within that platform transforms the way that organizations communicate ideas and identify opportunities. The way in which we understand economic development plans for municipalities or tourism opportunities and the interaction between all of these is fundamentally improved by a partnership like this.”
ESRI’s geospatial intelligence combined with Placer.ai’s location analytics can upgrade the way users of both solutions currently operate.
Both products are being used daily by thousands of customers to enhance the way businesses and organizations operate in the physical world. Enhancing the tools available will have a direct impact on the types of decisions that can be made, and the strategies deployed.
For example, best-in-class technologies exist in every sector. What’s different here is that “the challenge of bringing those technologies together is significant, and it’s the reason that it rarely happens,” according to Ben-Zvi. “It’s asking different organizations to align resources, perspectives and strengths to build new things collaboratively. In this case, there is a shared vision on how a partnership like this can truly transform how decisions are made regarding the physical world, and a shared desire to see it happen.”
Ben-Zvi declined to name any brands that have signed on to the enhanced offering of the partnership but the companies identified the “white space” of opportunity the partnership fills. He said Placer.ai and Esri have additional product launches in development, which will expand the two companies’ collaborative efforts.
Placer.ai has been on a partnership-forming roll of late. Last July, it announced a partnership with Vibenomics, an in-store digital advertising provider, and in November with Finance Lobby.
