Today's competitive business environment has required both public and private organizations to become more diligent about their IT investments. Business agencies, units or departments advocating or using GIS technology must now compete for their share of a limited, and often shrinking, IT budget. Many organizations face the following challenges:

• Competing to secure an appropriate share of IT-related budget
• Proving the real value of an GIS-related investment
• Prioritizing GIS-related investments based on the value delivered to the business
• Decomposing complex GIS programs into manageable components
• Delivering a growing portfolio of complex GIS enabled initiatives
• Delivering a visible and tangible impact to their organization, not just delivering project milestones

On February 5th, George Mason University’s School of Management will be hosting an Executive Training Seminar that explains how to apply an end-to-end, ROI-driven methodology for large, complex GIS-enabled programs. The day-long seminar will be led by Ross Smith, author of the book Business Benefits of GIS: An ROI Approach and Dr. Sergei Andronikov, PhD, MBA, professor at George Mason University

What You Will Learn
This one day seminar provides an overview of a methodology for enabling to build a robust ROI based Geospatial Strategy & Business Case, and establish the confidence that you can deliver. This end-to-end methodology addresses a means to win the hearts and minds of decision makers and the rest of the business, as well as assessing the quantifiable benefits.

In addition to helping to secure suitable budget, this methodology sets forth a framework for successfully delivering the benefits the ROI-based case describes, ensuring sustainability of the GIS initiative and the success of the technology-related investment.

The objective of this seminar is to provide sufficient insight, structure, templates and examples to allow you to build a robust ROI-driven GIS Strategy & Implementation Roadmap. It is based upon the methodology described in the book Business Benefits of GIS: An ROI Approach and delivered in conjunction with PA Consulting Group, the originators of this successful methodology.

Using a hands-on, “how to” approach, key topics include:

• Assessing current state of business processes
• Prioritizing business/organizational benefits
• Defining a forward-looking roadmap
• Building a GIS program portfolio that delivers the results expected by the organization/business
• Determine the optimum design for your GIS Team e.g. in-house, external, offshore
• Calculating the costs–operational and capital cost calculations in a robust and defensible way
• Calculating the benefits–quantifying hard-dollar benefits using a variety of methods
• Calculating and proving the financial case–NPV, IRR, ROI etc.

The Executive Training Seminar also provides tools, templates and a book itself that allow a participant to put the insights gained on this course into practice at his/her organization. Furthermore, this seminar is a part of and expands upon Mason’s Executive “Spatial Business Intelligence” Certificate.

Targeted Audience
Professionals from both government and industry involved in GIS services projects including:

• Senior and mid level management
• Department heads
• Supervisory team members
• Technical GIS professional

Participants will identify key success factors in managing GIS technology to meet government and industry objectives.