Esri Canada is the Canadian provider of enterprise geographic information system (GIS) solutions from Esri. GIS allows multiple layers of information to be displayed on a single map. Esri Canada’s solutions are based on ArcGIS technology. The company also distributes vertical-focused solutions. from technology partners such as Schneider Electric. A third of its offerings are professional services.
In 2010, the company was first named into the Branham300, a listing of key players in the Canadian information technology industry by revenue, compiled annually by the analyst firm Branham Group. Esri Canada ranked #67 in the Top 250 Canadian IT Companies list and was named one of the Top 25 IT Professional Services Providers in Canada. The company is a Platinum Winner among Canada's Best Managed Companies and has also been named one of Canada's Most Admired Corporate Cultures in the mid-market category.
History and expansion
Esri Canada was founded in 1984 by Alex Miller and Mary-Charlotte Miller, the company’s president and vice president of corporate policy respectively. The company is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. Esri Canada’s GIS solutions have been traditionally used for land-use planning and natural resource management. Early users of Esri technology in Canada include forestry giant J.D. Irving, Limited and Oxford County, Ontario
Esri Canada helped design the County of Oxford’s pioneering GIS model in 1985, called the Land Related Information System (LRIS), which integrated information such as property and infrastructure data from various government systems. The LRIS received the prestigious Exemplary Systems in Government Award from the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA) in 1988. The system continues to be used by the County today and has been expanded to support numerous business processes including administering building permits, civic addressing and emergency preparedness planning.
Advancements in GIS technology fuelled the growth of Esri Canada. The use of GIS for digital mapping or electronic cartography, geographic analysis and data management expanded into other industries including business, government, education, defence, public safety, public works, transportation, telecommunications, utilities and health care.
GIS applications across industries
Use of GIS by government, business, and industry has increased. The information it provides is used in a variety of areas, including tracking the spread of diseases, managing utility outages, and focusing marketing.
In addition, many organizations are turning to GIS technology as they strive to become more productive. Rona (company), Canada’s largest home renovation products retailer, uses Esri technology to plan flyer distribution. They incorporate data from loyalty programs with other socio-economic data to obtain a picture of customer spending around each store. The same data now helps the retailer in locating new stores.
Utilities are also looking at GIS to help them reduce costs, increase productivity and achieve greater accuracy in recording and retrieving field asset data. Utilities Kingston, which provides water, wastewater, gas, electrical and networking services in Kingston, Ontario, eliminated paper trail in its operations, such as surveys and field visits for repairs and maintenance, by using mobile GIS applications.
St. Michael’s Hospital (Toronto) used Esri technology integrated with other systems to create [BIO.DIASPORA] which predicts the global spread of infectious diseases by analyzing commercial air travel. The system was used to accurately predict the spread of the H1N1 virus around the world in early 2009, and also analyzed potential health threats during the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. BIO.DIASPORA was named a Laureate winner in the 2011 Computerworld Honors program, which recognizes outstanding use of information technology to benefit society.
With the strong demand for GIS solutions, the company’s workforce has grown to 300 employees by 2010, serving more than 10,000 customers.
Community maps program
To foster innovation and enhance the development of GIS applications, Esri Canada launched its Community Maps Program in June 2010. It intends to facilitate sharing of geographic data between governments and the public and provides free access to online community base maps that governments, businesses, and the public can use to develop GIS applications. Natural Resources Canada and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada contributed national base maps, while the City of Toronto government was the first municipality to contribute its geographic data through the program.