Welcome to the Location Data Blog!

The location data industry is characterised by opaque supply chains, making it challenging for buyers to procure high-quality datasets. Quadrant’s mission to instill transparency into the industry starts with how and where we source the data. We have been successfully working on acquiring data right where it is created, incentivizing developers to ethically monetize their mobile apps.

One way of doing this is SDK integration, which we have covered in detail. The other, increasingly popular method is Server-to-Server (S2S) integration; in this piece, we give readers a peek behind the curtain so that they can understand how S2S works.  

As users, we are not surprised to discover that a restaurant or a store on the map does not exist in the real world. It might have closed, moved, or never existed in the first place. Low quality POI datasets might be a mere inconvenience in our personal lives; however, this is a multi-million dollar issue for businesses.

Until recently, we couldn't even tell how big the problem is. After collecting and verifying 5,000 electric vehicle charging stations in Amsterdam in person, we have an answer: it is enormous.

We discovered that more than 14% of the locations in the city’s database were incorrect, and more than 11% of the data from a popular mapping platform was outdated. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. 

For years, Quadrant has been offering high-quality, authentic, and reliable mobile location data. In our interactions with customers and prospects, we discovered that many of them seek Point-of-Interest (POI) data to go with their mobility analysis. Good quality POI data is critical for operational efficiency, especially in sectors like transportation, delivery of consumer services, supply chain logistics, freight, and many others.

However, existing off-the-shelf POI databases are plagued with issues. They are not updated frequently enough, and the way they are assembled -- most often through web scraping -- leads to inevitable inaccuracies.

Pandemic-fueled lockdowns and disruptions in transportation systems hit the supply chain and logistics industry hard. From empty shelves to skyrocketing prices, disrupted supply chains have brought on inflation all over the globe. According to the Labor Department’s consumer-price index, inflation in the U.S. alone rose above 8.5 % after averaging about 1.7% for the past decade.

Point-of-Interest (POI) data is instrumental in facilitating the operations of businesses such as food and last-mile delivery companies, those that develop mapping and navigation software, ridesharing companies, and many others. In other industries, such data is harnessed to derive insights to inform decision-making around site selection and supply chain optimisation.  

However, procuring good quality POI data is a significant challenge.