National mapping organizations (NMOs) in India have a vital role in providing relevant and accurate geospatial intelligence to support a variety of activities such as economic development, research, natural resource management, safety, and national security. NMOs are the leaders in collecting, managing, combining, and promoting the use of accurate and up-to-date geospatial data for use by the government, businesses, and the public.
As the value of geospatial information becomes more widely recognized, customers are demanding more sophisticated products and greater access to the data. Customers are demanding more content, want to integrate data from multiple sources, integrate spatial data with non-spatial and expect currency, on-demand accessibility, and application-ready formats.
This trend is driving NMOs to re-evaluate their offerings as well as how they interact with their customers. NMOs need to move from the separate silos of traditional map production workflows to a modern, multipurpose workflow based on a central database offering a range of products and services: "capture once, use many times."
A clear vision and roadmap towards GIS platform-based approach would enable NMOs to build a workflow based Enterprise Data Production and Dissemination System that would help them to adapt to this new paradigm. Such a GIS-based platform would enable their processes by managing the high-volume collections, task-oriented production, and supporting the quick sharing of products. This would enable extending open geospatial capabilities to any user and allows access by any application on any device anywhere, anytime facilitation collaboration and sharing.
