GIS Solutions appointed sole agent for world’s largest GIS vendor Esri

GIS Solutions (Pvt.) Ltd., a subsidiary of the Just in Time group, was appointed as the exclusive authorised distributor for Esri Inc. last week. Since 1969, Esri has been giving customers around the world the power to think and plan geographically. The market leader in GIS technology, Esri software is used in more than 300,000 organisations worldwide including each of the 200 largest cities in the United States, many governments, more than two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies and more than 7,000 colleges and universities.

Esri applications, running on more than one million desktops and thousands of web and enterprise servers, provide the backbone for the world’s mapping and spatial analysis. Esri is the only vendor that provides complete technical solutions for desktop, mobile, server and internet platforms.

GIS Solutions Limited plans to market the ArcGIS product line in Sri Lanka to a growing market. “Among our local customers are different government agencies, local Government authorities, survey and mapping, environment and forestry, disaster management, urban development, land use planning, defence, census and statistics, transportation, utility boards such as water, electricity and telecommunications and universities and education institutions that require specialised know-how that we would be able to provide,” stated GIS Solutions Group Head of Marketing Kavinda Mahawedage.

Esri software is recognised as a revolutionary product that provides unique services to the market in today’s technology driven world. With Esri, financial institutions such as banks can preview a property and its location, amenities available, accessibility and so on before giving a loan against that property. “The application of our software portfolio enhances the potential of leading sectors in the economy,” added Mahawedage.

GIS Solutions plans to establish a dealer network to strengthen and reinforce the Esri range in Sri Lanka. What is on offer will be available on cloud as well, making accessibility and availability easier for the users.

He noted that there has been a long felt need for this kind of highly specialised software which enables real time management of geographical data and empowers institutions to take accurate and timely decisions. “Sri Lanka has four universities that offer GIS, geometric and remote sensing courses. These graduates use GIS analysis to determine areas best for agriculture, plan roads and infrastructure and help mitigate natural disasters. With Esri, they will be able to solve problems and take critical decisions that will shape Sri Lanka in the decades to come.”

GIS Solutions plans to work with key stakeholders in areas that would benefits from the usage of geographical information systems software. Institutions engaged in mapping and disaster management services amongst others will benefit tremendously from using such software. “We have the right resources and management capacity to provide support for high end specialised software platforms at GIS solutions,” Mahawedage asserted.

“The timing of GIS Solutions becoming our distributors could not have come at a better time in Sri Lanka. In the face of massive investments to improve the country’s infrastructure, supporting an exploding economy with GIS technology for Government, education and commercial industry is our aim. Customers use this technology to share, collaborate and provide transparency to Sri Lankan citizens and in doing so will make the country a global success,” said Esri Asia Pacific Strategic Business Development Manager Mike Quin. Esri Asia Pacific Technical Advisor Craig Pitman added, “We are proud to deliver many terabytes of maps and high resolution imagery for free to everyone through ArcGIS.com. We have already done the hard work of finding, downloading and serving this – so that Sri Lanka can concentrate on the GIS it needs.”

Many Government and commercial organisations who are concerned about the costs of hardware and networking can use cloud services to deliver GIS both to the public and within their organisation. This means that they pay only for the storage and processing they need from day to day and leave the hard work to highly qualified infrastructure personnel, explained Pitman.

GIS Solutions is a newly formed company, a subsidiary of one of Sri Lanka’s leading system integrators. GIS Solutions plans to venture into all areas of geographic information systems island wide and with the country developing ay a rapid pace, the company sees great potential for further opportunities.