Heading in the right directionThe heavily industrialised area along theEdinburgh – Glasgow corridor has under-gone a remarkable transformation in thelast 20 years. As traditional industriesdeclined, a significant amount of landbecame available for redevelopment.However, since much of this land had beenin use for mineral extraction and heavyengineering, considerable work was neededto make it suitable for light industry andoffice use. It was to support thisredevelopment of vacant and derelict landthat Scottish Enterprise first made serioususe of Geographical Information Systems(GIS). There were a number of ESRI ArcViewlicences distributed across the LocalEnterprise Companies as well as at theheadquarters. Initially desktop GIS was usedfor ad-hoc mapping projects but it wassoon recognised that site-based informationcould be managed effectively using thesetools to bring together a wide range of CADbased plans, photographs, and textualreports. Business benefits through morecentralised data management wereimmediately apparent, with improvementsin the data integrity and higher qualityoutputs.

Scottish Enterprise practices what itpreachesBuilding on this initial experience, ScottishEnterprise embarked upon a formalapproach to GIS to increase the return onthe initial investment in base mapping andto evaluate the benefits across the

� Success Story � Scottish Enterprise � � �

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Scottish Enterprise implements Autodesk MapGuide®

organisation. Scottish Enterprise is aneconomic development agency with a verywide remit. It is involved in generatinginward investment, skills creation and thedevelopment of property to support theenterprise culture. It channels its remitthrough key sectors: tourism, forestindustries, finance, and high technology. Asan evangelist for this latter sector, ScottishEnterprise was determined to practice whatit preached. This approach to GIS, alongsidethe organisation’s determination to bee-enabled, has helped establish ScottishEnterprise as an exemplary public sectorbody. After engaging GIS consultants KnowEdge to formulate a GIS implementationstrategy, an implementation project wasinitiated under the direction of JohnRowland. John reports, "There were manypotential applications for GIS beyond theinitial site-based land management work.All the time we had to bear in mind thatstaff had neither the experience nor theculture of using geographic informationtools for their operational work. To beuseful, any system would have to be trulyfast to learn and easy to use."

The web is the answerOne of the key recommendations of thereview was to implement GIS as a centralisedmanaged service. This form of implementa-tion would align with the anticipatedbusiness transformation within ScottishEnterprise. It would help to overcomepotential staff retention and turnoverissues. By using the right model of a

Autodesk MapGuide is a vitalpart of the ScottishEnterprise infrastructure,helping develop and deliverK-map content quickly andeasily. "One of the key advan-tages of Autodesk MapGuideis its fast development cycles– you really can get results ina matter of days."

John Maslen, GeoWise

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Enterprise in Scotland. Rated among the world's top economicdevelopment agencies, Scottish Enterprise is the main suchagency for Scotland, covering 93% of the population fromGrampian to the Scottish Borders.The Scottish Enterprise Network consists of Scottish Enterprise and 12 LocalEnterprise Companies. Working in partnership with the private and public sectors,Scottish Enterprise aims to secure the long term future of the Scottish economy bymaking its industries more competitive. Scottish Enterprise helps business start-upsand existing companies to grow; it promotes and encourages exporting; it attractsinward investment and develops skills. Priorities include commercialisation ofacademic ideas into good business opportunities, e-business, globalisation, andeconomic inclusion. Because of its activities during 1999-2000, it has helped add£900 million a year to the output of the Scottish economy over the next three years,creating or securing around 25,000 jobs. Funded by the Scottish Executive, ScottishEnterprise is headquartered in Glasgow. Around 80% of the information it uses isgeographically related, which is why it has implemented a Geographical InformationSystem (GIS). What follows is the story of that system.

managed service, the provider would behighly focussed on achieving projectobjectives. Since the system had to be ofvalue to up to1,500 staff in 13 differentlocations with a minimum of installation,set-up and support, there was in effect onlyone solution: a web-based one. This wouldbe built around a framework of contractedservice suppliers together with a dedicatedin-house support team. It would also utilisethe existing high-speed networkinfrastructure. The recommendations wereadopted by Scottish Enterprise taking theopportunity to implement the GIS strategyalongside an all embracing businesstransformation initiative.

Autodesk MapGuide powers K-map The result of the review was KnowledgeMap or ‘K-map’, a platform co-funded by theCompetitive Place Directorate and theorganisation's business transformationproject. The objective was to establish andprovide products and services to enableefficient and effective sharing of informationthat has a geographic context. As the namesuggests, the initiative is based on the useof maps as a means of both depicting andretrieving information from diverse sources.The project started with the issue of twoseparate invitations to tender. The first invi-tation to tender covered the actual provisionof a service to establish a web mappingproject whilst the second was a frameworkcontract for approved suppliers of possibleapplications to run on K-map. ScottishEnterprise moved quickly. Following anApril 2000 tender call, suppliers and systemswere selected by July 2000. In fact,Autodesk MapGuide, supplied by GeoWisewas chosen as the basis of K-map. GeoWisehad significant experience with AutodeskMapGuide and knew that with it, they couldmeet the project’s short developmenttimescales. John Maslen of GeoWise notes,"One of the key advantages of AutodeskMapGuide is its fast development cycles –you really can get results in a matter ofdays. That is why we were confident wecould implement K-map within thetimescales." GeoWise is an independent GISsolution provider and systems integratorand as such supports best-of-breed prod-ucts.The company has significant experiencein the application of socio-economic infor-mation to key public sector agendas suchas neighbourhood statistics, demographics,health and economic development.

K-map roll-out complete.GeoWise is the K-map lead contractor,working with Forth Valley GIS, the localauthority service provider covering Stirling,Clackmannan and Falkirk councils. GeoWiseis responsible for overall K-map deliveryand support. Forth Valley GIS hasresponsibility for the management of alarge spatial data warehouse including allcore Ordnance Survey data Scotland-wide.K-map is designed to allow rapid anddynamic retrieval of both ScottishEnterprise managed information and otherthird party managed information. Users ofthis facility, the K-map Portal, can selectareas of interest, for example a particulardrive time from a specified location or asocial inclusion partnership area, thenrapidly retrieve a range of informationpertaining to the selected area. Roll-outacross all 12 Local Enterprise Companiesand Headquarters was completed inSeptember 2001.The system is also available,with suitable and proven security, to otherinvolved public agencies in Scotland withappropriate service level agreements withdata providers. It is therefore practicallydemonstrating the concept of true joined-up Government information exchange.

A comprehensive solutionThe K-map Portal is technically an extranet.With suitable security, the whole of the siteis available to the Scottish public sectorallowing all parties to access the same data,encouraging agency partnership andenabling accurate and consistent decisions.Scottish Enterprise believes that this solutionis unique. Autodesk MapGuide provides avery fast interface to a wide range ofspatially related data. The K-map user inter-face has the look and feel of a simplifiedbrowser. It is essentially intuitive, comprisinglarge press buttons with self-evident iconsfor all functions. Most selections are madevia drop down menus minimising thenumber of keystrokes and mouse clicksneeded to navigate the system. The systemis delivering economic developmentinformation to Scottish Enterprise'sworkforce of approximately 1,500 staff.

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Regional Selective Assistance.The use of GIS is already proving its worthwith the revised Regional SelectiveAssistance scheme. The previous relativelysimple blanket scheme has been replacedby a more targeted and selective scheme.Eligibility criteria are much more complex,but with K-map, the enquirer inputs apostcode, switches on the Assisted Arealayer and can immediately see if a locationqualifies for assistance and at what level,too. Use has been extended beyondScottish Enterprise to the Scottish ExecutiveIndustry Department. Users report that itsaves them time and reduces errors anduncertainties. In addition, the system isexpected to ensure that becausedevelopers are better informed aboutAssisted Areas, the resulting developmentswill be more appropriate to the needs of anarea.

Autodesk MapGuide, the future ofweb-based GISK-map is in many ways similar to the Internetitself. It is an infrastructure, and its valuedepends on the content. AutodeskMapGuide is a vital part of this infrastructure,helping develop and deliver K-map contentquickly and easily. Twelve months into theproject and demand for more data sets isdeveloping as SE staff see the power of thesystem. In the future, K-map is likely toextend its delivery beyond the ScottishEnterprise Network, central government,agencies, local authorities, communityorganisations, and training institutions. Itwill start to address its customers directlysuch as companies looking to expand intoareas with easy access to the necessaryskills, premises and transport infrastructure.It will help education establishments supplythe trained staff that incoming organisationsneed. Additional business agendas that willbenefit from K-map include strategicexpenditure, social inclusion, tourism,transport, communication, labour markets,training and lifelong learning. K-map ishelping to put the enterprise into ScottishEnterprise.

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