Spatial Technologies Empowered

Regen Pacific Pty Ltd

Addressing the Gap in Geospatial Service Offerings

Overview

 

The Geospatial or GIS industry has had an interesting history.  GIS, unlike other information technologies, has not sprung from the logical minds of systems architects and engineers but rather from geographers and surveyors; professionals whose minds are fascinated by the physical arrangement of our environment.  Because of this, GIS has had difficulty breaking into mainstream ICT and is often considered as a specialist tool or an add-on to corporate systems.

 

The emergence of standards based, enterprise geospatial systems (such as those offered by the major vendors and even open source community) open new horizons for the application of geospatial technologies.  Enterprise and mass consumer oriented systems are now not only feasible but becoming main stream.

Geospatial Services Gap

 

The service sector has evolved in parallel with the technology, providing a range of invaluable data capture, manipulation, mapping, training and consulting services.  The GIS industry cannot survive without these services; however there is a lack of qualified and experienced people with GIS and ICT backgrounds who have a clear picture of the issues and opportunities the newer technologies offer.

 

The impact of this lack of technical skills is exacerbated by the GIS industry’s focus on technical solutions and technologies.  Very few consultants possess the business and communication skills necessary to understand, capture, distil and communicate business processes and to then extend those into requirements analyses and system design.  Even fewer can then effectively manage complex projects involving a range of tasks, skills and individuals.

 

Conversely there are few business services or ICT consultants who understand the data, issues, technologies and standards surrounding contemporary enterprise geospatial systems implementation.

Where does Regen Pacific fit?

 

Regen Pacific’s principal, Robert Fenwick, has an unusual background, combining extensive experience in surveying, mainstream GIS, the sciences, ICT and business management.  Robert has been responsible for the design of substantial enterprise geospatial systems in both Europe and Australia and has managed significant vendor based services organisations providing consulting, application development, training and technical support.  Robert has developed and instituted consulting techniques designed to extract and document business process and requirements information.  Having co-authored university and vocational level practical and theoretical GIS courses and maintained hands on skills with a range of applications, Robert has a genuine all-round knowledge of this slightly arcane industry sector.

As the diagram  shows, Regen Pacific is not a mainstream GIS consultancy; instead it is a specialist in facilitating communications between the various technical and business domains so necessary if an enterprise project with spatial components is to succeed.