As the economies reopen, customers and businesses in the changing neighborhoods and sprawling megacities would require accurate POI information, says Mike Davie, Founder & CEO, Quadrant.
How has COVID-19 impacted the location data industry?
COVID-19 has greatly impacted how people interact with their surroundings. Their consumption patterns have drastically changed, as many service providers have moved fully online to sustain themselves. During all this, we see an increased demand for mobility data. Both government and private businesses need location data to understand footfall patterns for the expansion and contraction of commercial outlets, assess the effectiveness of pandemic control measures, and ensure the availability of public services.
But we have noticed a more significant impact on the Points-of-Interest (POI) data side. POIs are the digital representations of places in the physical space, including retail, restaurants, and services. All this data rapidly became outdated in a short time as retail outlets have shut down or moved to digital operations, and corporations are turning to remote working. As the economies reopen, we will see the same problem: how can our industry keep up with all the changes? Current datasets are going to be badly outdated.
Can you share with us some of the new use cases of POI data post pandemic, and are you seeing higher demand in certain industries?
We see an increased demand for accurate and up-to-date POI data in many industries, especially in last-mile delivery, food delivery, supply and logistics for retail and online markets, ridesharing, mapping, and navigation. Indeed, there are many industries where the quality of geospatial data can be a deciding factor between competitors. Who can fulfill an order the fastest, who can deliver and return with minimum hassle, which rideshare option has the most cars in the area, or which maps are the most reliable? Business models have changed in the last 1.5 years, so we see this as the new normal.
There are also trends that will continue in full force after the reopening of economies, like re-urbanization in the developed world or the breakneck-speed growth in Southeast Asia. Customers and businesses in these changing neighborhoods and sprawling megacities need accurate POI information.
How is re-urbanization impacting location data companies and consumers?
A great deal. First, as we discussed, it is challenging to keep up with the changes in these neighborhoods. Datasets which were considered high-quality a year ago are suddenly almost worthless. Second, re-urbanization is both an opportunity and a challenge for businesses and local governments. Where are the new concentrations of purchasing power? Where should a grocery chain or a bank expand next? Which are the areas where public services like transportation or healthcare need to be recalibrated?
The best way to answer these questions is by combining up-to-date POI data with mobile location data. Using sophisticated analyses, re-urbanization and similar trends become immediately visible, and these actionable insights can be translated into business or government decisions.
For POI data, we see a desperate need for authentic and up-to-date datasets, especially in APAC. We concluded that existing methods of building databases like web scraping or crowdsourcing are simply not good enough. So, we built a new, proprietary data collection platform, Geolancer, a custom-built smartphone app, and the corresponding backend infrastructure
Where do you think innovation is most needed in the location data industry at the moment, and do we need better tech or better analysis models?
External forces like the pandemic and societal trends like re-urbanization or privacy consciousness highlighted the need for innovation in two areas. Talking about mobile location data, the increasing awareness around privacy is manifesting itself in regulations like GDPR, and in changes Apple and Google are introducing. In a few years, we will likely reach a point where data sourced without explicit user consent will become worthless in many countries. We have launched our own consent management platform, QCMP, packaged together with our newly designed app monetization SDK. QCMP is using Blockchain technology to track data back to the source and provide a real-time audit trail.
For POI data, we see a desperate need for authentic and up-to-date datasets, especially in APAC. We concluded that existing methods of building databases like web scraping or crowdsourcing are simply not good enough. So, we built a new, proprietary data collection platform, Geolancer, a custom-built smartphone app, and the corresponding backend infrastructure. Using the mobile app, Geolancers — freelancers — can add POIs manually on the ground and periodically verify them, while walking around in their neighborhood. This way we will be able to provide the most up-to-date and verified information to data buyers while also helping small, local businesses be seen.
How is Quadrant contributing to the evolving location data economy?
We are on a quest to build the world’s most accurate and up-to-date POI database. We launched the beta version of Geolancer on May 9 with a campaign in seven countries in APAC (Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam) with spectacular results. In just a month, 235 Geolancers added 52,438 Points-of-Interest (almost 1700 per day). Some of these are in areas that were barely mapped previously, like the rural Philippines. Many of them are in the fastest-changing environments in the world, like around new developments in Indonesian megacities. No one else has as accurate, authentic and up-to-date POI data in these regions.
