TAPC - From Guide to Find
Alain De Taeye, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer explained the key “sea change” the company (and frankly good parts of the geospatial technology market) are seeing. The move from “guide” to “find.” Mapquest (and others) made their mark by getting us, in our cars, from A to B. Now, we want more, we want to find. I have to point to the Internet and search engines to helping educate us on the matter. What are the implications of this change? New demands including:
(1) Increased expectation from technology - not just guide, but find and we don’t know what!
(2) Ease of use - demand not a map but virtual reality, demand ease of input of query, input of their data, integration with apps.
(3) More content - link “everything” to map, dynamic (traffic/weather), specific community-based content
(4) Increased coverage - from car to everyone with phone is part of the addressable market, car countries are not the only ones
(5) Quality expectation - ideally want error free map, but that’s not possible, but we aim for mid 90s, ideally want fresh and up-to-date, again not possible, but can be quicker
The end consumer is driving the market now, far more than businesses, etc. That’s true in part because the market is now 10 or 100 times larger than the auto market, it’s now everyone with a phone or wireless device.
