Archive for the 'Geocoding' Category

Best Practices in Geocoding

Published on August 11, 2010 in Data Quality and Geocoding. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

As more than 70% of all business records include a location component, it is not surprising that location accuracy has become such an important part of data quality. Today, organizations are using location data to administer market analysis, risk assessment, effective targeting, network investments, site selection and portfolio management.

Before you can analyze, extrapolate or profit from location data, you first need to associate each record with an accurate latitude and longitude coordinate. That’s why so many organizations employ geocoding. Geocodes translate common reference points, such as customer addresses, into latitude and longitude coordinates that makes it easier to analyze data.  If your geocode is wrong, however, your analytics are wrong, your insights are wrong—and your decisions are wrong—so it pays to be accurate.  Today’s best practices include: 

1. Validate source addresses

Geocoding tools should offer the ability to cleanse data, standardize addresses and validate that source addresses are correct before applying geocodes.

2. Validate geocode results

Accuracy has another element, positional accuracy, which measures how close the geocode is to the reference point. Geocoding an address to the center of a city, for example, will be less positionally accurate than one centered on a precise parcel or rooftop.  Today’s leading solutions provide a ‘geo-confidence index’ that estimates the probability that the latitude and longitude assigned correspond to the place intended. 

3.   Utilize precise, up-to-date reference data

How often you update your reference data is important, as reference points such as roads, addresses and developments are always being added and modified. Many companies do quite well with quarterly data refreshes.

4.   Geocode to multiple levels of accuracy

There will be times when it is not possible to deliver a geocode centered on a specific address or parcel.  The tools you use should recognize this and apply consistent rules, automatically cascading to the next most-specific point of reference, from address point, to street level, to postal code, city, state, etc.

5.  Combine geocoding and spatial analysis

Ultimately, the goal of any solution is to provide answers, not latitudes and longitudes.  Look for tools that combine geocoding with the ability to perform analysis, calculations and predictive analytics, such as point-in-polygon analysis, closest site analysis and the ability to calculate drive time and distance.

 6.  Integrate into existing workflows

When you can integrate geocode analytics into existing operations and business processes, you can which streamlines workflows, eliminate manual processes and improve decision making. 

 7.   One-stop service

Solutions need to be simple to use and flexible enough to meet different business requirements. A single technology platform that matches up with your overall corporate objectives can help ensure that a consistent standard will be applied in every market.  Likewise, maintaining one platform reduces cost of ownership and can speed up system integration. A single interface also simplifies training and education, and makes it easier for your company to gain the skills and capabilities in Location Intelligence needed to achieve a competitive advantage.

 To help you learn which geocoding solutions are available in your area, Pitney Bowes Business Insight has created a multi-media map.  You can use the interactive map to get detailed information for each country regarding our address correction, geocoding and routing capabilities.

More actionable data

Published on June 8, 2010 in Data Governance, Data Quality, Geocoding and Spectrum Technology Platform. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Business users count on high-quality data every moment of every day.  

In practical terms, data needs to be “fit for use”.  That is, you data should add value to your existing operations and help users make better, more accurate decisions in the course of doing business.  For most organizations, ensuring that data is fit for use entails three distinct disciplines. 

  • Traditional data quality: the ability to cleanse, standardize and validate data
  • Location intelligence: the ability to see data in context of location
  • Spatial analysis: the ability to understand the relationship between two or more data points

Today, 70% of all records contain a location element and knowing “where” affects decisions in virtually every aspect of an organization.  Consider:

  • Marketing can gain insights into customer needs and buying habits
  • Insurance underwriters can identify potential risks (such as proximity to a flood zone)
  • Finance teams can assign proper tax jurisdictions
  • Sales managers can develop territories based on true market opportunity
  • Service teams can plan routes to minimize logistics costs
  • Facilities managers can develop optimal network strategies

Location and spatial analysis are so critical, in fact, that organizations are increasingly looking to incorporate geocoding, location intelligence and predictive analytics as part of their core data quality platforms and processes.

This month, Navin Sharma, our Director Global Product Strategy, will share how these market realities play out in the latest release of the Spectrum™ Technology Platform.  This informative webinar will include details on how you can integrate enterprise geocoding, location intelligence and a new geo-confidence model into your core CRM, ERP and legacy systems.  Ideal for data stewards, IT managers and business users, I invite you to register for this Webinar today and get the facts on today’s best practices in data quality, data management and more.

Hot data trends in telecom

Published on March 30, 2010 in Data Governance, Data Quality, Geocoding and data integration. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

In recent months, many in the communications industry have identified new ways to increase profits via data quality and location intelligence.  We’ve compiled the best resources all in one place, from customer activation, cost-effective service and event-driven intelligence to customer relationship management, broadband expansion and gaining a handle on wireless coverage.

Trends in Customer Activation: Complexity and competition have raised the stakes of the onboarding process, a time when companies can lock-in customer relationships, tackle the high cost of fraud and cross sell most effectively. New technologies—particularly in the area of data quality and integration—now provide for more efficient and effective customer activation programs.

Broadband Expansion: To the Stimulus and Beyond. Communications executives and state agencies discover how new data technologies provide insights to secure funding, improve service and expand their business.

Five Must-have Capabilities for Unbeatable Customer Care. As quality customer care becomes an even more important factor in overall profitability, communications companies will need to identify where they can make the biggest impact.

Event-Driven Intelligence in Telecommunications. The latest corporate mandate provides carriers the practical insights they need to transform business processes for the better.

Data, Disconnected. Communications firms take the necessary steps to build greater accuracy into their customer management processes.

RF Propagation Coverage Data. Processing data for optimized display and analysis in a web-based application.

The value of WHERE

Published on December 2, 2009 in Data Quality, Geocoding and Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Did you know that approximately 70 percent of all business data contains a location component? As the amount of location-related data increases, organizations are finding new ways to capture and analyze this information to strengthen customer relationships and make smarter business decisions—decisions that can plan an important role in your future success.

This month, we are pleased to announce that David Loshin, president of Knowledge Integrity, Inc., will offer his insights and perspectives through a much-anticipated webinar:

Location Intelligence and Data Quality: Gain Maximum Value from Your Business Data

Thursday, December 17, 2009 @ 11AM ET.

There is no cost, but you must register.

Like all data-related procedures, the quality of any location-oriented analysis is dependent on the quality of your underlying data. In this webinar, you’ll learn the degree to which data quality management should and can be integrated with location intelligence and spatial analysis. By looking at the types of data used for spatial analysis and location intelligence, you’ll see what data quality and data cleansing practices can deliver more precise results and more reliable decisions.

Registration is required to join this event, which is brought to you with compliments by Pitney Bowes Business Insight.  Please take a moment to register today.

Are 9-digit ZIP Codes really good enough for sales and use tax jurisdiction determinations?

Published on November 2, 2009 in Geocoding. 0 Comments

The vast majority of sales and use tax service/software providers use United States Postal Service (USPS) data to do their geocoding for tax jurisdiction determinations. This means they use 5 digit or 9 digit ZIP Codes to determine if the tax location is inside or outside city limits or a special tax jurisdiction.  This can cause false determinations as postal data, designed to deliver mail, is not designed for use as a business tool for accurate geocoding, particularly with respect to local jurisdiction taxes. This can cause several problems:

  • There are a significant number of residences that do not have mail delivered to the street address (PO Box only) so the USPS does not have that street information in their postal database.
  • ZIP Codes cross city boundaries approximately 30% of the time, resulting in multiple choices for the actual tax jurisdiction.
  • The postal city name can be different than the actual place (municipal) name, i.e.  Thornton, Northglenn, Westminster, and other Colorado cities show as Denver in the USPS database.
  • The USPS does not know or care where a municipal or special tax district boundary occurs

As technology has improved over last several years, these same service and software providers have now moved to the ZIP+4 as a means to reduce the error rate caused by using ZIP Codes. While much more accurate for geocoding purposes, unfortunately, the same issues apply, albeit to a lesser scale. In fact, a number of false positive geocodes may occur. This means you are getting a tax jurisdiction assignment result, but it may be the wrong one because you really need the underlying municipal boundary data to match with the ZIP+4 to be sure the answer is correct. 

Why is the underlying municipal boundary data so important when doing tax jurisdiction assignments? There are just shy of 20,000 cities in the United States and many of them annex more and more territory each year. In 2006, over 4,800 annexations occurred nationally and in 2008 over 6,600 annexations occurred, so the rate of change is increasing significantly. Unfortunately, the tax service providers have no way to keep track of these municipal changes. Also, over 7% of the nations cities do not have mail delivery to homes, and therefore the street address information is not included in the USPS database.

We see the same issue of the rate of change increasing with more and more Special Tax Districts being created each year, many of which do not match up with city boundaries. Further, as allowed under the Streamlined Sales Tax Agreement guidelines, some member states are introducing local taxes where none existed before.

This ever increasing rate of change makes accuracy more important than ever. Using actual street addresses for geocoding provides a more accurate result when coupled with underlying current municipal boundaries, as it returns the correct jurisdiction virtually every time.  Case in point: 11 States now use street address level geocoding on their websites for tax jurisdiction look-ups in recognition of the fact that USPS data just is not good enough to assure the correct answer. They either create and maintain these databases themselves or license the data from third party vendors.

Why do these businesses continue to use USPS data even thought there are known errors introduced? Because it is free.  Given that today’s fiscal environment is causing increased audit scrutiny in many states, free may become very costly.

New laws address taxing problems

Published on July 17, 2009 in Geocoding. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Companies are responsible for collecting taxes on behalf of state and local governments, but some industries face more complex rules than others. The insurance industry is one such example.

While all states levy a statewide tax on most forms of casualty, property and health insurance premiums, several states go a step further and allow local governments to apply a separate “local government premium tax” ranging from 2 to 10% on insurance policies to help finance local government services. 

Keeping track of state, local and municipal tax jurisdictions can be a challenge-13 insurance companies doing business in Kentucky discovered that the hard way when they found themselves subject to a class-action lawsuit that cited tax overcharges and violations of state laws.

Many insurance companies rely on ZIP CodesTM to assign applicable tax jurisdictions, however most state and local premium tax assignments in the U.S. are based on specially defined boundaries that don’t necessarily match municipal or ZIP Codes.  Complicating this matter, hundreds of thousands of Zip Codes experience changes in names and boundaries each month. 

Some states are taking action. Under a recent change in state legislation, Kentucky now requires that insurance carriers use a verified geo-spatial database that appends the correct state, county, township municipality and premium tax district information to each customer record. Any insurance provider selling policies in Kentucky must begin using a verified system by January 1, 2010.

To learn more about these issues-including how you can leverage location intelligence technology for accurate, up-to-date premium tax assignments-read the in-depth Pitney Bowes Business Insight white paper on this topic.