GIS has evolved to meet enterprise-wide needs much like the enterprise software evolutions in the financial, human resources, supply chain, and customer management arenas. An enterprise GIS is an integrated, multi-departmental system for collecting, analyzing, visualizing, managing, and disseminating geographic information. It includes the infrastructure, mission critical capabilities, and robust architectures associated with other enterprise software. It is intended to address both the collective and individual needs of an organization, and to make geographic information and services available to both GIS and non-GIS professionals.

The principal purposes of an enterprise GIS are to provide broad access to geospatial data, a common infrastructure upon which to build and deploy GIS applications, a common GIS data management framework, and significant economies of scale and resulting business value through organization-wide deployment and use.

Characteristics of an enterprise GIS include:

  • Organization-wide data availability-any authorized user who would benefit from geospatial data has easy access to it
  • Key to the achievement of mission critical business objectives
  • Scalable, extensible, reliable, and secure
  • Capable of being effectively integrated within the enterprise
  • Supports a wide range of technical and non-technical users through a robust set of GIS tools ranging from lightweight browsers to expert-level analytical, modeling, geodata management, and development programs
  • Organization-wide standards and governance processes-software, data, and infrastructure standards must be established and governed across the enterprise
  • Like other enterprise technologies, may be complex to implement-requires significant planning and support
  • Delivers a high return-on-investment

The manner in which an enterprise GIS is administered and managed depends on the needs, operational maturity, and even the culture of an organization. In some organizations, a centralized group performs the planning, implementation, and support of enterprise GIS data and infrastructure. In others, core data layers and related infrastructure are administered centrally while individual departments maintain the data and infrastructure specifically required to meet their unique requirements. There is no single enterprise GIS model that is right for everyone. The more complex the organization, the more thought needed to determine the optimal architecture, procedures, and governance processes.

Many ESRI users have successfully deployed enterprise GIS in their organizations including federal agencies, state and local governments, utility companies, national mapping organizations, and transportation agencies. Scott Bowman from the City of Fresno, California, and Linda Gerull from Pierce County, Washington, are two GIS managers with experience implementing an enterprise GIS.

Read their thoughts on this topic in an issue of ArcUser that included a special focus section on Managing a GIS.