00:01We are here to present a solution that we made up in Italy for Italy and also in 15 countries in Europe for automotive sector.

00:10And the big, great achievement that we realized that when you go to a private or commercial sector...

00:17...the first thing that you said that you are an Esri business partner and they tell you, "Esri who?"

00:24And so you have also to teach about what GIS is or the functions that you can implement, but they are not interested.

00:33They really are interested in a solution; they only want to see their KPI, they only see they want to...

00:39...how they can reorganize, they can manage, they can have an answer about a problem.

00:44And they simply don't care about technology.

00:47And also they are not GIS users, so they don't know how to zoom, how to pan, how to info, how to--all you...

00:55What is a thematic layer? What is a map? What is export?

00:59They really don't care about it; just simply they want to use.

01:02So when you go to this market, you have to create a solution that involves a process.

01:09You have to sit right near to the businesspeople, do the question, and translate the answer into workflow, into process.

01:20And after that, you have to make up the solution so that they can use without knowing that they are using a complex GIS algorithm.

01:29They are modeling what they were thinking that you are converting into a process, okay?

01:37So that's what...this is what we do all day in our life in Italy.

01:43We are the only business partner entirely focused on the private and commercial business.

01:48We integrate statistics, we create regression models, we create data from external forms...

01:57...we manage, we create a layer that we integrate into the solution and deliver to the commercial business.

02:03So the new [unintelligible] that are appearing also during the conference, we know many speech about it...

02:11...is that the commercial sector now is a place where you can go and you can take your GIS experience...

02:18...but in a different way from the government or public sector, 'cause they really don't care. They have no time.

02:25As we made up the solution usually in days, maybe a week, maybe two weeks.

02:32This was a 15-country project, so they gave us a lot of time--five weeks to go to the market, okay.

02:42So we were very confident that we can go.

02:45And they ask us when we were on holiday, 21 of August they ask us, and the first country roll was at 26 of September, France.

02:58Okay? This is what the private sector asked. It's all about time to market.

03:04So we had to find a solution that involved the possibility to achieve this result very quickly, and that's what I want to show you.

03:16So I've developed a presentation into three steps--the challenge, the approach, and the technical solution.

03:22I'll try to explain the three steps one at a time.

03:27First was the challenge. Imagine seven different brands, so it's like seven different companies...

03:34...but they are correlated, they are merged, they want to know...they are fused.

03:38So they want to know the overlapping, they want to know if you have seven different networks...

03:44...and you have to create one or two.

03:47You have to know how to organize. There are some people that you can simply...

03:52They are not only about technical problem but involve human relationships.

03:57You can't simply close one location, because it's not so simple.

04:02So all the problems when you move to commercial sector are quite different.

04:07Fifteen different countries, all those guys never knew anything about GIS.

04:14The only GIS that they knew was Google Maps, and so they are involved...

04:18The only things that they can do when they saw a map is, like, to move a mouse or to try to pan on and off...

04:26...autosearch each own house or where they go on holiday.

04:30They are not involved in anything that is technical for us.

04:34For different kinds of data. When we came into a company, usually we [unintelligible]...

04:42...GIS is always the last technology that enters inside a company, always the last.

04:48If we have to enter in a place where maybe you are Oracle Data Warehouse, SQL, SAS, SAP, and so you have to go deep...

04:58...and try to find your place and find a way to integrate the data and to reput the data inside their data warehouse.

05:10No GIS people as I saw. They're all businesspeople.

05:14They only wanted to have an Excel at the end of the analysis. Nothing more.

05:21That's why when I saw Jack Dangermond presenting ArcGIS for Office, I said yes, that's the right product.

05:27This is the key to our applications for us. Okay.

05:30Multicountry automatic geocoding. Imagine different languages, different problem...

05:36If people that don't even know how to write correct...how to write an address in a correct way.

05:42And you have to automate this process because the only thing that they want to do is insert[unintelligible] into an Excel file.

05:49They don't want to touch file geodatabases; they don't even know that file geodatabase exists.

05:54And you have to create a file geodatabase starting from the Excel file.

05:57You have to integrate [unintelligible] external, internal from the data warehouse involving two processes...

06:02...create the analysis and create the auto data.

06:06Image processing on the other side, they don't want to know how, but they don't want a complex answer.

06:13They want to know about coverage, about competitive scenario, about the competitive pressure.

06:19All the PPRs are very difficult to implement because you have data in a very short, brief census block.

06:30Automotive sector usually has data categorized by year, by brand, by class of vehicle...

06:41...and each data is delivered on a census block layer.

06:49And so the other things that 14 countries needed to be updated automatically from our company...

06:57...so we have to create automatic processor.

06:59We delivered a new model, so we delivered through FTP and through the [unintelligible]...

07:06...we modeled out-of-date in all the countries. The only thing they have to do is reopen the MXD.

07:12We are not involved in restyling [unintelligible] process. It's always a copy and paste.

07:18So all the solution is enclosed inside a single workspace.

07:24Now the thing is that many people can work on the same machine, but they want different things.

07:29Imagine that you are a technician and so you want to see some kind of KPI and some kind of functionality.

07:36On the other side, you are not a technician, you are only a manager, so you are not involved in such things.

07:42You only want to click and create a report.

07:45On the other side, you can work on French, and on the same machine you want to work on Spain...

07:51...on the same machine you want to work on UK, and the system has to understand that you are talking about UK...

07:58...so all the models, all the workflow panels have to move to the right toolbox, the right geodatabase...

08:05...the right scratch geodatabase, all without that they know how these things happen.

08:11And as I said, five weeks to deploy the solution.

08:15But the very, very, very big constraint that we had when we approached the commercial sector is low IT impact.

08:23Businesspeople simply don't care about IT; they don't want to talk with them, they don't want to know how they think.

08:30They only want a solution.

08:31So you come to those people and you say, okay, you don't even have to talk to your IT.

08:37I take this; you only need to be administrator for two hours; I install your solution as a tool.

08:43After that, after you have demonstrated you can do these things, you can think to involve the IT...

08:50...and try to leverage the solution from the desktop to enterprise to the web and something like that.

08:57But in commercial sector, from my experience, it's impossible to start with an enterprise solution...

09:02...divert from IT, and after IT approves, you go to businesspeople. It doesn't work.

09:08Businesspeople don't accept. They don't want to use.

09:14And this is the business approach. Imagine that you are arriving in a company, a company [unintelligible] data.

09:20You have to take with you not only the technology but also the data that they need.

09:26They are not a public sector; they have no data from the real world.

09:33They have no layer, geographic layer; they have no social demographic information.

09:41And in many cases, you have to build the data for them.

09:46Imagine for an entire company that you have to build the [unintelligible]. It doesn't exist in Italy.

09:52You simply have to bring out Internet, take some people, write down, geocode, create the layer of points...

10:00...and after that, you can sell inside the solution.

10:05The other thing that you have to manage is the feeding of the data [unintelligible].

10:09You cannot ask those people to go to a geodatabase, add data, do a thematic...

10:16They don't even know how to automate the data or do the thematic layer.

10:20And so you have to create an automatic process that automatically creates the thematic data.

10:27You only have to manage which KPI they want to see.

10:31The other thing that you do is to create all this business process that permit to analyze and to take business decision.

10:43They're only interested in these two panels.

10:47All those things, they are not aware of all those things in the system, only it work.

10:58Okay. So we decided to create them a solution, desktop solution, multidesktop solution...

11:05...in concurrent and single use mode based on Desktop 10.

11:10When we deal with hundreds of custom models, we easily use ModelBuilder to customize it...

11:16...to achieve the result in so few time, and we convert all these models into a workflow.

11:25So all the GIS stuff that you do usually are converted into a flow that the GIS does for you...

11:35...and the only things that the GIS does is to create a layer, to create a thematic map...

11:40...to add automatically to the map, and to permit to create a report, Excel and PDF.

11:52Well, how we achieve this?

11:54We simply use a panel, we create [unintelligible] that's a panel that is connected with an XML file...

12:03...where you can write inside how the models are, where the models are, and in which country they are collected.

12:13And so, I think this is the secret, in my opinion.

12:20So you can create 15 different XML models nested inside the workspace when you are delivering the solution.

12:30So one day I didn't start with which country is it, which model I have to create, which model I have to connect.

12:38So the panel is always the same, but the things that change are the data that are called and also the functionality that is called.

12:56This is the panel. You only have to work from first to last.

13:03And all the functionality that you usually do using the normal button or the normal function of GIS...

13:13...are nested inside this panel.

13:15So you can find an address, geocode your network.

13:18After you are done and after you can update the[unintelligible] new file that comes...

13:25...create the geography and the KPI that you need; here I do driving time.

13:32When you click for a model, we create a simple [unintelligible] that can be useful.

13:43And when you launch the model, imagine the difference between creating network drive time analysis...

13:52...using Network Analyst or simply to choose the traffic congestion and choose which kind of vehicle you are [unintelligible].

14:06The system does all the things by itself, and the result is that the drive times are added to the map...

14:14...all automatic, divided by brand, with a [unintelligible] that is read inside the Excel file.

14:22So the people don't really insert anything geography correlated; they only work with the Excel.

14:29And the Arc model...

14:32[Audience question] What is the purpose of the drive time?

14:34The purpose of the drive time is trying to understand the coverage of the network.

14:39[Audience question] I understand that, the purpose of the drive time...Why does the client need it? What are they looking for?

14:46They're looking for the coverage. They're looking, if you have a network...

14:50[Audience comment] No, I understand.

14:51Yes?

14:52[Audience comment] So they're marketing. Yes. They're looking for people that can come to their stations [inaudible]?

14:57Yes. Yes. You have also, as I said, there are layers about the potential of the territory...

15:10...so you're going to intersect this potential in terms of which is the maximum distance that a customer can travel, okay?

15:21[Unintelligible] Okay.

15:33And this is the toolbox, okay? Those are all the models that we develop for each country, I think more than 200.

15:44The things that we made up is to nest the model, so we create the core functionality using ModelBuilder...

15:50...and we nest this core functionality, wrap it around a focused model.

15:56Because the external model takes the input specifically for each country and converts these localized data into generic data...

16:09...and after that, passes the data that this time are equal for each nation into the core module.

16:16When the model finishes work, the data are repassed through the more external model that re-creates the local version of the data.

16:26[Inaudible audience question]

16:35[Unintelligible] is like from minutes to two or three hours, but the work all the model does, I think this is a one-day operation.

16:49[Inaudible audience question]

16:57We create also parallel processes inside [unintelligible]...

17:00...but it is not ArcGIS that doesn't work very well in this case, a multiple model.

17:07[Inaudible audience question]

17:11One instance, yes. One instance at a time. Yes.

17:15So we are already interested when we saw the last speech when we finally saw that you can...

17:21...parallelize even on a server, even on the server.

17:24[Unintelligible] it is not so simple parallelizing your processing models; localize, the same thing.

17:29But if you launch together four instances that calculate drive time, maybe you have some problem with the licensing.

17:37[Inaudible audience question] Yes. [Question continued]

17:54There are model...the data came from the data warehouse from the company, so it is an ETL process that...

18:03...converted the data into a view that feeds the model, that synchronizes the data inside the geodatabase.

18:11So it all starts on an Excel file, in this case, two Excel files per country, and the data are moved into the geodatabase.

18:18And so the only things the customer has to do is to follow the workflow.

18:23In any one, when we build up this, the few, in every step there's a warning...

18:38..."In order to run this model, it is necessary to run Update Park Data."

18:41So when you create the data, it's the customer that has to be aware to follow the workflow, okay?

18:59Feeding the model was also a challenge, 'cause even...

19:01Usually we don't know how all the data will be formatted and which format will be used by the company.

19:12And so we create a feeding model. The feeding models are models that accepts data in a very different format.

19:23We can [unintelligible] Excel to write to SQL, Oracle, SAS.

19:28The only things that we need, that we understand, are the right, the necessary fields are present...

19:43...and so we simply converted this into...well, it's quite difficult.

19:52Okay, this is the feeding model. We start from an Excel.

19:57First, we're converting Excel into geodatabase, and after that, it creates all the KPIs that are needed.

20:06The last thing that we do is add it to the table of contents using a prerendered thematic layer.

20:16The other thing that we did is we create many [unintelligible] of custom models that supplies what ModelBuilder doesn't do.

20:26So there are things that ModelBuilder simply doesn't have, so we create custom automation.

20:32Instead of creating code or something that is not correlated, we simply create even more and more...

20:41...big toolboxes so we can drag and drop all the new functionality and use...repeat and use it inside the other model.

20:56So because there was a multinational approach, all the delivery is made inside a single workspace...

21:03...so we simply have to send the workspace via FTP.

21:08So the FTP is automatically loaded into position; it doesn't matter which position it is.

21:13Double-click inside the MXD, and everything works. This is the only things...

21:20With this approach, we can update every country, and if we know that there is something that doesn't work...

21:29...we can correct that directly inside our office and send back the new toolbox or the entire geodatabase or the entire workspace.

21:40It's also possible to have multiple deployments on the same machine because it's all about the single workspace.

21:46So if I click the MXD for France, all ArcView, all ArcGIS is prepared.

21:54It presents me France database, France toolboxes, France model.

21:58If at the same time I open another session--this is UK--ArcView presents itself like a UK-oriented GIS.

22:07And so they can do different analyses on the same machine, multiple screens, with the same ArcGIS.

22:20[Inaudible audience question]

22:26It was not the scope because each country is focused only on its market.

22:33But you can drag and drop and move the data, move the layer, and so on.

22:37They are geodatabases so there are no problems.

22:40We left the software completely open.

22:42We create the workflow that the businesspeople can follow, but also imagine that you have ArcGIS...

22:47...and so you can use in any way you can.

22:53It is also possible to customize on the same machine. Using XML files, I can decide which tools are loaded.

23:00So for the same country, I can create different users, and for the current country, different users.

23:06So without using something like permissions, enterprise security, or so on, I can simply switch the functionality.

23:20This is a solution that we made in a one-click update.

23:23So we created, we package the update, synchronize it using Subversion server, we sent through HTTPS.

23:32The package is unpacked on the client side, there's a common file that must be launched, and everything is updated.

23:45Everything that they need is updated; the things that don't need updates are left untouched. Okay?

23:53We also created, and it is the most challenging thing that we did, is the what-if scenario, what-if tool analysis.

24:01Imagine if you have to prepare from year to three years to reorganize your network, and you have to decide...

24:09...using drive time as I showed, which is the coverage if I move one dealer from one part to another part.

24:16What happens in terms of coverage? What happens in terms of level of service?

24:21Which is the distance that my customers have to travel to come to visit my dealer?

24:28And so you can create multiple scenarios. Those scenarios are automatic [unintelligible].

24:33All the PPRs are automatically recalculated.

24:36The scenario creates a physical copy of the geodatabase for all the brands that you choose and permits you to navigate inside it.

24:45Okay, Marco, can you...

24:46Okay. So as Stefano said, what-if is a kind of geographical view as the Excel file that you usually work with.

24:59In the business country, we have to deal with an Excel file when the user puts some particular data...

25:10...and see what happens if I change this data in the future.

25:14Usually we work with the past data, historical data; we see what we have done the years before.

25:20But here, we want to see what we are going to have if we change the sales network in a geographical view.

25:28If I change a customer, if I remove a point, if I add another one, and they want to see the new coverage...

25:34...what it looks like in the future.

25:37And with a few entry points models, we start to create a new scenario from...starting from the current situation.

25:49I take the current network, the current coverage, and the current drive-time areas.

25:56The user, with a few--using the panel, starts to edit the network.

26:04Stefano said that we work with businesspeople, so they don't care about the editing features inside the ArcView interface.

26:14They don't want to start editing, they don't want to remove a feature using the editing panel...

26:19...they don't want to fill every kind of fields inside the table, and they don't want to remove anything else.

26:26So with a few models, you can see the upper corner--Add Data, Remove Data, Modify Data...

26:34...they are pre-fixed models that do the things that can create confusion for them.

26:42So add a new point, and so on.

26:46The starting point of everything is creating a new scenario in this part.

26:50They put the name and the brand they want to analyze, and it creates a completely new copy of the current situation...

27:00...with the changes layer, so they see what they are going to modify, add, and delete.

27:11Then, using the same processes as the normal workflow, we create the new coverage and the new analysis...

27:22...and KPIs on this new scenario.

27:25So they can evaluate different situations from the current situation and evaluate if the new changes...

27:34...may affect in a good way or in a bad way the current network.

27:39So they take some decisions that may affect the next year.

27:47So it's a kind of a what-if in the business process for the sales network.

27:57They want to, maybe for example, say it's in the products, they want to see how can my sales be if I change the price of this product?

28:10Okay, in this case, how my coverage will be if I remove this point from my area and how will be my coverage?

28:17So they can see the future in a geographical view and not only in a sales view.

28:28So go back to Stefano for the conclusion.

28:31Okay. The conclusion is that we create a solution that must achieve two things.

28:37It must be easy to use, and it must be easy to deploy.

28:41Easy to use because it simply is not a GIS solution.

28:46It's easy to use like following a workflow and clicking a button...

28:54...and all the things that the GIS does are doing it in the background.

28:59And easy to deploy because it doesn't involve the IT, it doesn't involve permission on the machine...

29:06...it doesn't involve everything.

29:08It's simply the files are moved from one location to another.

29:11And the next thing, in our opinion, is how the best way, the safe way to approach the commercial and private sector.

29:21Thank you. Thank you.