Building Powerful Visual Mashups Using Location as a Service (LaaS)

The Power of Location Intelligence

Not long ago, sophisticated mapping capabilities were locked behind expensive software licenses and specialized expertise. Only the largest organizations could afford the infrastructure and talent needed to create powerful location-based insights.

Today, billions of location data points flow through systems every day—from GPS-enabled devices, IoT sensors, mobile applications, and satellite imagery. The challenge isn't accessing this data. It's turning that flood of information into actionable intelligence.

Location as a Service has democratized access to enterprise-grade mapping capabilities. Your team can now seamlessly and easily combine proprietary business data with authoritative location intelligence to create visualizations that reveal patterns, optimize operations, and unlock competitive advantages.

Whether your development team is building custom applications, your business leaders are commissioning new analytics dashboards, or you're presenting innovative solutions to clients, understanding what's possible with modern location services opens up a world of strategic opportunities.

Location as a Service: Strategic Capabilities Without the Infrastructure Burden

The Platform Approach

Location as a Service (LaaS) lets organizations consume location intelligence through cloud-based APIs rather than building and maintaining proprietary geospatial infrastructure.

This frees your organization to focus on core competencies and innovation. Developers can prototype solutions in days instead of months. Your IT department can scale based on demand. Your budget goes toward creating business value, not maintaining servers.

Why This Matters Now

We're operating in an era of unprecedented data abundance. Geospatial information once exclusive to governments and major enterprises is now widely accessible. Ubiquitous connectivity and cloud infrastructure enable real-time intelligence at scale.

Modern software architecture revolves around composability—connecting best-in-class services through APIs to create powerful custom solutions. Developers can integrate mapping, routing, and geocoding alongside CRM data, ERP systems, and proprietary datasets. Small teams can deliver enterprise-grade applications by leveraging specialized services rather than building everything from scratch.

Traditional GIS required specialized expertise many organizations couldn't justify. Modern location APIs put sophisticated mapping capabilities within reach of standard development teams. And when you layer your proprietary business intelligence onto authoritative location services, you create insights your competitors don't have.

HERE Location Services: Enterprise-Grade Capabilities at Scale

HERE Technologies is a major player in the enterprise location services market. The platform provides comprehensive mapping coverage across approximately 200 countries, including advanced routing, over 120 million points of interest, and real-time traffic intelligence.

HERE delivers location capabilities through REST APIs with consistent data models, advanced offline capabilities, and high availability. 

Core service categories include:

• Maps: Vector and raster tile rendering for custom visualization
• Routing: Multi-modal pathfinding across car, truck, bicycle, pedestrian, and public transit networks
• Geocoding & Search: Address-to-coordinate conversion and location discovery
• Traffic: Real-time flow data and incident intelligence
• Positioning: Location determination and tracking capabilities

The Strategic Value of Data Mashups

The Mashup Approach

A data mashup combines information from multiple sources to generate insights that no single dataset could provide. You're using authoritative map data as a foundation and layering your organization's proprietary information and additional data on top.

Sales patterns that look unremarkable in spreadsheets become clear when visualized geographically. Logistical inefficiencies hiding in operational reports become obvious when you see vehicles moving in real-time. Scattered market opportunities reveal themselves as geographic clusters.

"Bring Your Own Data"

HERE's platform recognizes that your data is your competitive advantage. The APIs provide location intelligence infrastructure, but the real value comes from what your organization contributes: customer relationships, service territories, operational metrics, market research, institutional knowledge.

When your teams combine these assets with HERE's location capabilities, you create analytical tools unique to your organization's needs and opportunities.

Enterprise Mashup Scenarios

Sales Territory Optimization

If you have a national sales organization, you could visualize account density geographically, sizing markers by revenue and color-coding by growth. Overlay territory boundaries to identify coverage gaps and high-potential areas.

This might reveal that your fastest-growing customer segment clusters where you're understaffed, or that apparent under-performance correlates with longer travel times rather than market potential. These insights would drive strategic decisions about hiring, territory realignment, and resource allocation that traditional reporting can't easily identify.

Disaster Relief Coordination

You could visualize your fleet in real-time as teams navigate toward a natural disaster. Layer in road conditions, incident reports, and congestion data. Display resource locations and capability inventories.

You could instantly assess which assets are best positioned to respond, reroute around incidents, and communicate with data rather than descriptions. For consulting teams pitching to relief organizations, utilities, or logistics companies, demonstrating these capabilities shows how technology creates operational advantages when time matters most.

Strategic Site Selection Analysis

Imagine an integrated visualization that layers traffic flow patterns, demographic data, competitor locations, property pricing, and transportation network access onto a single map.

This could instantly answer questions like: Which location optimizes customer accessibility while minimizing transportation costs? How do traffic patterns affect different sites? These visualizations transform site selection from an intuition-driven process into a data-informed strategic decision.

Moving from Concept to Implementation

The potential applications extend far beyond these examples: fleet optimization, customer journey analysis, risk assessment, market penetration modeling, competitive intelligence, resource allocation, supply chain visibility.

The common thread is combining your organization's proprietary intelligence with authoritative location services to create insights that drive better decisions and stronger competitive positioning.

Next Steps

Download our fact sheet: "What Sets HERE Location Services Apart From Other Mapping APIs?" This resource provides a detailed comparison of platform capabilities to inform technical and strategic decisions.

Connect with ADCi to explore how location intelligence fits your specific needs. Our team can help you identify high-value use cases, assess technical requirements, and make sure you have the right data for your project, from concept to deployed solution.

Modern location intelligence gives your teams the visibility and context they need to make better decisions faster. What will your organization build?