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Unit 10: Enhancing Decision Making for the Digital Firm

GIS allows us to view, understand, question, interpret, and visualize data in many ways that Notes
reveal relationships, patterns, and trends in the form of maps, globes, reports, and charts.
A GIS helps you answer questions and solve problems by looking at your data in a way that is
quickly understood and easily shared.
GIS technology can be integrated into any enterprise information system framework.
A typical GIS can be understood by the help of various definitions given below:
 A geographic information system (GIS) is a computer-based tool for mapping and analyzing
things that exist and events that happen on Earth.
 Burrough in 1986 defined GIS as, “Set of tools for collecting, storing, retrieving at will,
transforming and displaying spatial data from the real world for a particular set of purposes”.
 Arnoff in 1989 defines GIS as, “a computer based system that provides four sets of
capabilities to handle geo-referenced data:
 Data input
 Data management (data storage and retrieval)
 Manipulation and analysis
 Data output.”
Hence GIS is looked upon as a tool to assist in decision-making and management of attributes
that needs to be analysed spatially.

10.5.1 Views of GIS

A GIS is most often associated with a map. A map, however, is only one way you can work with
geographic data in a GIS, and only one type of product generated by a GIS. A GIS can provide a
great deal more problem-solving capabilities than using a simple mapping program or adding
data to an online mapping tool (creating a “mash-up”).

A GIS can be viewed in three ways:
 Database view
 Map view
 Model view

Database View

A GIS is a unique kind of database of the world—a geographic database (geodatabase). It is an
“Information System for Geography.” Fundamentally, a GIS is based on a structured database
that describes the world in geographic terms.

Figure 10.7: Database View

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