Our fifth and final post in our series about the various capabilities of Google Maps is centered around the backend of the Maps Platform and the Google Cloud Platform as a whole – the data that’s being utilized, the overall quality of the data, and where that data is derived from.

With the increase of more automated, complex, and detailed data-driven processes being implemented into everyday workflows, it’s more important than ever to ensure that your business is taking full advantage of the capabilities that Google Maps Platform (GMP) offers.

The Google Maps Platform builds a foundation on 3 main core items: Maps, Routes, & Places:

• Maps helps to bring live, real world information to our users through the utilization of customized maps and a variety of Street View images.
• Routes is exactly what it sounds like – helping users find the most efficient way to get from point A to point B through the use of real-time traffic information and detailed location-based data.
• Places uses location data to help GMP users explore the world and, on a more specific level, find places & businesses through the use of phone numbers, addresses, and other real-time signals

The world is changing and the pace of change is getting faster, driven by the internet, connected devices and cloud technology.  With these changes comes the need for a higher standard in the overall quality of data. As data becomes more important, low-quality data has started to be weaned out and not utilized as much.

High-quality data has started to be coined as the “new oil in the digital economy”. As the data universe expands from 4.4 ZB (zettabytes) in 2013 to 44 ZB in 2020, businesses face both extreme challenges and remarkable opportunities. How small, medium, and large companies store, evaluate, analyze, manage, and subsequently apply data will play a pivotal role in their ability to thrive and therefore, scale.

Managing quality data at scale can be an issue for nearly every business that has any sort of digital connection to their customers, employees or stakeholders. Big Data is what allows these companies to understand their markets, identify the best performers, and better serve and sell to customers. This is true for companies of all sizes – Whether a company has 100 or 100 million customers, they need to know who their best customers are, and, more importantly, what they need.  

According to Forbes, 90% of the data in the world was created recently, in the last two years. With this newly created data, the majority of the data in the world already has or will have a location component attached to it.

The location component of data provides context and connection between all of this data that seemingly doesn’t appear to be linked or have an obvious pattern, which in turn helps companies continue driving business insights and value by analyzing and taking full advantage of the high-quality data. On top of this, there has been a huge increase in connected devices across all industries. 

Today, there are 23 billion Internet-of-Things (IoT) connected devices worldwide, and by 2025, current numbers and research forecasts nearly 75 billion IoT devices, an increase in 52 billion devices, all with a location data component attached!  

To put that into better context, those numbers translate to an average of almost 6 internet-connected devices for every single person on the planet.

With all of these connected devices producing more & more location data, location intelligence becomes an even more crucial component for businesses and the data they are utilizing.

Location data essentially provides the backbone and the context for individuals and businesses navigating the world around them, creating new value for enterprises.

Location data also enables businesses to visualize high-quality and complex data, understand the context behind this data, analyze the data points, and finally develop insights that they can then integrate into their everyday processes. 

There are three core benefits that location data provides to companies around the world:

• Helps businesses enhance their customer’s experience.
• Helps optimize & better structure a company’s internal operations.
• Helps to enable a more strategic decision-making process by connecting complex insights that companies weren’t able to identify before. 

The quality, accuracy and updated aspects of Google’s Location-based data is due to their growing investment in location technology over the last decade, and Google as a whole is continuing to invest and explore new ways to connect people to the world through these data-driven insights.

Google Maps has over 1 billion daily active users across the globe. In addition, with their unique Google Local Guides program, there are nearly 60 million Google “Local Guides” who make millions of daily contributions to Google’s overall Places data.

Google as a company employs thousands of experienced, highly-skilled engineers across the world who take the time to develop algorithms to get Google’s data not only into the right format but also combine it with other sources of data from various other sources.

In addition to the excellent, high-quality data and overall user experience of Google Maps Platform, only Google Maps Platform can provide the seamless integration with Google Cloud Platform that we mentioned in our previous blog post to provide users with one easy to use solution to build, innovate and scale their business.

Google Cloud Platform is trusted by enterprises, startups, and everyone in between, and with its Compute, Data Analytics, AI and Machine Learning, Storage, G Suite productivity tools and more, combined with Google Maps Platform and the sheer amount and quality of data, the possibilities for any business are endless.

Google has some of the most real-time, accurate data – one of the keys to this is the extremely popular Google Maps consumer experience, which has over 1 billion monthly users, and Google’s Android ecosystem, with over 2 billion monthly active devices gathering and contributing data from around the world. All of these people and devices, along with Google’s leading-edge technology, drive over 25 million updates a day to their massive store of data.

Google Places includes extensive data on location names, addresses, ratings, reviews, contact information, and atmosphere, which benefits all by helping users explore the world around them.

Google Maps Platform can help businesses automate and optimize their operations in real-time to enable them to provide easier and faster experiences for their customers, by augmenting their existing user data with Google Maps location intelligence and Google’s advanced machine learning.  

So what are the main driving factors that should push businesses and more users to take advantage of the Google Maps Platform? Simplicity of pricing and products, scalability of the Platform (and your business built on it), and the seamless integration with Google Cloud Services.

Be sure to check out our previous posts regarding GMP and its various uses:

Top 5 Areas and Use Cases Where Google Maps Excels

Google Maps Platform Expanded – Area #1: Routing & Logistics

Google Maps Platform Expanded – Area #2: Retail & E-Commerce

Google Maps Platform Expanded – Area #3: Financial Services

Google Maps Platform Expanded – Area #4: Cloud + Maps

To explore how your organization can take advantage of Google Maps, schedule a consultation with our Google Maps team.