GIS software can bring about amazing changes in organizations. Because GIS is built on geography, it fundamentally influences and connects ways of doing business, from maximizing return on investment to supporting more analytical decision making. With GIS, businesses today go far beyond standard data analysis and incorporate geographic location into viewing and analyzing data. Organizations can easily see data in a spatial context, update and manage assets in real time, and provide location-based services to users. Companies find using GIS technology allows them to make faster and more informed business decisions based on this integrated view. This geographic data can be used across an entire organization, in the field, and on the Internet. The possibilities are endless.

Esri's software and technology take advantage of the continuing advances of information technology by making geographic data available over integrated systems for use in every aspect of an organization. Whether a small or large organization, GIS is emerging as a successful way to manage business by transforming the way the organization looks after its assets, serves its customers, makes decisions, and communicates.

Companies today are using GIS in every task from target marketing, direct mail, site analysis, customer care, asset management, routing and logistics, competitive analysis, and customer attraction and retention to economic development, to name a few. In today's information rich environment, GIS can help companies find the information they need to do these jobs with the least amount of time and cost.

The stories in this special section on business come from incredibly different venues. The world's largest reinsurance firm finds a way to bring information in a timely manner to thousands of its clients. A successful automobile maker, who understands that targeting customers correctly can make or break the company in such a competitive market, turns to GIS. A growing county's Economic Development Council creates a GIS-based solution that attracts businesses and manages real estate in a fraction of the time it used to take. All of these very different businesses and applications have one common thread-GIS is making their businesses better.