Written at a practical level, suited to the business audience, thisexceptional book explores the business environment of makingGIS successful. It applies academic rigor to practical andcommercial implementation issues and offers viewpoints from allparties involved in GIS implementation. Achieving BusinessSuccess with GIS provides tangible advice ranging fromtechnical and financial to organizational and commercial. It isunique in that it does not stop short of providing, without hype orembellishment, practical advice and real examples regarding thetotal cost of ownership of a project or finance and returninvestment of GIS products. Achieving Business Success withGIS highlights that the use of GIS technology needs to befocused on the business issues, not the technology.The book begins by describing the use of GIS in a global contextwithin a business environment as the background to outlining theneed for organizations to have a strategy for their GIS. Thebook then goes on to explore the elements of a GIS strategy andexplains issues which are relevant for such approaches and how togo about developing it.In the closing chapters of this book, the process of specifyingand tendering for a GIS are discussed to ensure that the focus ofthe reader remains on the business issues of theorganization. This is followed by examples of the best andworst Geographic Information Systems including a discussion onGoogle Earth and Web 2.0.The combination of the statistics from the GIS / Spatial surveysand the author's consulting experiences make this book aninvaluable resource for GIS managers in government (federal, stateand local) and utilities, organisations using GIS, and students andlecturers in this field.