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European Geospatial Industry Today and Tomorrow
The European geospatial market is moving forward and evolving, starting from single data asset capture to integrated workflows to Cloud platforms. It's been quite a journey and the momentum is not going to get any slower. The private industry, government, and academia — the three pillars of the geospatial ecosystem — need to prepare themselves because there will be much to do. By Meenal Dhande
In recent times, despite the havoc wreaked on people and businesses by the COVID- 19 pandemic, the geospatial industry has witnessed a surge in demand for geospatial-based value-added services, technology innovation, and digitalization of systems and processes. As the power of location moves into the hands of people, the global geospatial market is estimated to reach USD 1.44 trillion by 2030. Europe is one of the major players in this trillion dollar economy. It is a region where geospatial tools are indispensable in governance, environmental management, society, and businesses. According to the European Geospatial Business Outlook Dossier published by Geospatial World, the European geospatial industry is forecasted to grow at a CAGR of 11.61% between 2021 and 2025, and touch USD 155 billion.
This growth is attributed to the evolving role of national geospatial agencies, enhanced workflow integration in the economic sectors, changing business models, and an evolving legislative environment. These points were reiterated by European geospatial experts at the recently held GeoBuiz Europe Summit (pre-conference of Geospatial World Forum 2022) — the experts discussed directions and dimensions, technology trends, and business models of the European geospatial market. Here are some excerpts from the panellists at the Summit.
Technology drivers of European geospatial industry In Europe, the digital infrastructure (sensors and IT) is going to be the major technology driver for the geospatial industry, followed by artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and deep learning (DL). These technologies are being swiftly adopted by organizations for the purpose of data processing and analytics, as Europe has one of the biggest Earth Observation (EO) programs. According to Elly Perets, CEO, Asterra, “What people are looking for is not just data but analytics and what action can be derived from it. EO is changing the way data is going to drive our lives.”
Drones/UAVs are rapidly becoming the tool of choice for surveying and collecting high quality real-time data in Europe. Christoph Strecha, CEO, Pix4D, spoke about the strategic importance of drones in the geospatial arena: “In order to make digital transformation faster, the data acquisition devices need to be easy and accessible not only to the professionals but to almost every worker.”
Geospatial technologies are now ubiquitous across different sectors. For example, the use of GEO-BIM and digital twins is increasing in the infrastructure and construction industries. “Digital twins can mean a single asset, critical infrastructure, or entire cities… the task starts at the design phase but goes further in the full management of the project and this is where the value of geospatial lies,” said Antonello Giuliani, EMEA Sales Director, Trimble.
Jaime Sanchez, Head of Solutions, CARTO, highlighted that GIS was now being used more and more outside of traditional and siloed GIS departments and tools: “Geography is changing faster than ever before. We have a new set of requirements for
Leading Technology Drivers of European Geospatial Industry
Note: Percentages are % of respondents who ranked the given option indicating the low, medium, and high impact of strategic factors on the geospatial industry growth; includes n = 400 survey responses; n*leader interviews = 150 Source: GeoBuiz 22 Report; GW Consulting Analysis, Survey – July 2021-Jan 2022
spatial analysis.” He also added that the governments in Europe are looking to the commercial geospatial sector for innovative ideas to solve problems like climate change, building sustainable infrastructure, and so on.
Leading market drivers According to the European Geospatial Business Outlook Dossier, amongst the leading market drivers of the European geospatial industry is the evolving role of national geospatial institutions, as they tranform from providing just data to providing knowledge. For instance, national geospatial agencies, in collaboration with other government departments, are encouraging the development of National Digital Twins in countries such as the Netherlands, Germany, and Sweden.
A second driver is enhanced workflow integration across new vertical domains — the idea now is not to use products or technologies in silos but as complete solutions to provide end-to-end services. This further drives a lot of collaboration and agreements between geospatial industry, non-geospatial industry, and governments. For example, different utility companies work together and partner to help create digital twins of the underground or utility infrastructure.
During the GeoBuiz Europe Summit, Mark Haaksman, Senior Manager Business Development Digital Cities, Royal HaskoningDHV, observed that the role of government is to create standard ways for people to work together, so they can provide data that supports resilient utility infrastructure. “The city of Amsterdam is a good example. The Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS Institute) tries to bring all the stakeholders together not just for science or education but also for city operations and to create open strategic alliances,” he said.
Another example is Belgium — in order to build the underground network here, the government is making it obligatory for companies to divulge where they will be working in the coming six to nine months. As the utility owners share their locations, this gives an opportunity for others to do the same as well. Luc De Heyn, Chief Commercial Officer, Merkator, explains: “The goal is to have the street opened only once so that the telecom company can put new fiber and the electricity company can renew its cable, and so on.”
The government’s role is also crucial in making spatial data available to businesses and civil society to use for sustainable infrastructure. TerraNova, the European Landscape Learning Initiative based in The Netherlands, has been creating a reference architecture for a Digital Twin for the physical surroundings. “The government is standardizing the use of data for digital twins,” added Haaksman.
Evolution of business models The evolution of business models is on the rise in the European geospatial industry. Many geospatial companies are exploring new business models, transitioning, notably, from traditional license/subscription-based models to the X-as-aService business models. The X in
Leading Market Drivers of European Geospatial Industry
Note: Percentages are % of respondents who ranked the given option indicating the low, medium and high impact of strategic factors on the geospatial industry growth; includes n= 400 survey responses; n*leader interviews= 150 Source: GeoBuiz 22 Report; GW Consulting Analysis, Survey – July 2021-Jan 2022
this model continues to grow with innovations and new technology directions, and will contribute to the scalability and application of geospatial information and technologies in the long run. Sean Wiid, CEO, UP42, elaborates: “When we talk about data, infrastructure, and analytics-as-a-service, we are providing access to commercial algorithms from a range of companies; I think this is a really important mechanism that we have built to push the technology from the industry into the hands of developers, ultimately providing a complete solution to the users.”
Companies foresee various benefits of adopting X-as-a-Service in creating and providing integrated solutions, adding features, innovating, faster product development, and reducing risks of R&D. Andreas Gerster, Vice President Software Technology Solutions, Hexagon, said, “In the end, success is more than just a collection of tangible items. It’s the knowledge and the wisdom and how to combine them, how to use them in a meaningful way.”
Acknowledges Philip Mott, General Manager, Esri Europe, “Technology is moving fast, it’s difficult to keep up with it. And we are all desperate to try and deliver optimum value to our customers. X-as-a-Service is typically connected online — they stay fresh, bug-free, with the latest versions of the software to do your best work, that’s what everybody wants.”
The European geospatial industry is also driven by intra- and inter-industry collaborations and partnerships that offer wholesome solutions to users, expand market outreach, derive benefits of economies of scale, and save resources on independent development of digital technology strengths. In this context, as per the Dossier, the European geospatial industry is still looking at the subscription/ recurring business model as its second most preferred method to capture new business segments.
Preferred Business Models by European Geospatial Industry
Note: Percentages are % of respondents who ranked the given option indicating the low, medium and high impact of strategic factors on the geospatial industry growth; includes n= 400 survey responses; n*leader interviews= 150
When it comes to subscription models, Phoebe ParryCrooke, Partnerships Manager,
GeoBuiz Europe: Session on Technology Innovations and Platforms: Driving X As A Service
what3words, believes they give great flexibility to the end-users: “We are thinking how to give a customized and simple experience to the users.” But this doesn’t mean that it is a silver bullet for all the problems. “Procurement is a massive headache; people are not
Luc De Heyn, Chief Commercial Officer, Merkator
Pier Francesco Cardillo, Information Technology and Digital Transformation, e-GEOS going through that on a monthly basis. We speak to clients on a one-to-one basis to see what works best for them,” she explained.
Public policies and accelerator programs Europe’s public policies provide a conducive environment for driving geospatial industry growth. The European Union (EU) supports SMEs, start-ups, entrepreneurs by establishing innovation hubs/ clusters. The EU has developed geospatial policy frameworks, viz. INSPIRE Directive (2007/2/EC), and EU Space Strategy and Space Policy, and allied policy frameworks to support the innovations happening in the industry and the economy of the region.
The European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) provides safe and secure European satellite navigation services while promoting the commercialization of Galileo, EGNOS, and Copernicus data and services. Reinhard Blasi, Acting Head of Communications, EUSPA, elaborated on the various initiatives of the organization: “We sense the need to have a more specialized funding instrument, for example, innovative receivers, chipsets, and devices that take advantage of Galileo. We are also in charge of the European Commission’s Cassini program, where we take care of the space segment, that is, covering the start-ups gaps.”
Massimo Comparini, Deputy CEO, ESVP Observation Exploration Navigation, Thales Alenia Space, spoke about the upstream and downstream space infrastructure and applications, “We are looking at more commercially-driven constellations. We’re talking about an information-driven business — how to combine geospatial data with the huge layers of other information.” He also said that the open data policy is extremely important to grow a number of innovative companies working on the downstream: “We don’t create competition for the European companies based on the fact that someone can simply catch data and come to Europe to sell. What we have done in the last 20 years is based on a really balanced and good mix of public policies and private investments.”
The space start-ups, acceleration programs, and investment scenarios are critical to the growth of the European geospatial industry. The region mainly attracts higher investments in the space ecosystem. The space start-ups in 2022 had already raised more than USD 350 million by Feb 2022, which is almost half of the total fundraising in 2021. With the increasing number of downstream applications in the space ecosystem, and the increasing number of innovative and vertical-based applications, the geospatial industry will expand significantly. Rainer Horn, Managing Partner, SpaceTec Partners, said, “The funding
sources and the ecosystem have gotten a whole lot smarter and much more complete in Europe. We have engagement programs, hackathons, idea competitions and so forth from the European Commission and the European Space Agency (ESA). Then, there’s a whole lot of private and increasingly public accelerators who are helping to inspire new talent.”
On the other hand, the United Kingdom released its space strategy last year. The first step by the UK was to state clearly what they were trying to achieve and ensure their public sector bodies had a clear mission so people. “It’s important to have clear strategies because otherwise the industry doesn’t know where the public interest is going to lie and you could end up with one of those data custodians accidentally treading on an area of expansion for the commercial industry. So we have got UK’s geospatial strategy which was initiated in 2020 being refreshed every year,” said Nigel Clifford, Deputy Chairman, UK Geospatial Commission.
Lea Bodossian, Secretary General & Executive Director, EuroGeographics, quoted the Dossier, saying Europe’s Open Data Directive and the European Data Strategy is a pioneer with an innovative approach towards building an attractive, secure, and dynamic European data economy that will benefit the overall economy and society. In Europe, everyone has access to the data from the NMAs (national mapping agencies) as they have embraced the public policy of open data. “The NMAs are also strongly encouraging the ecosystem inside the EU. Each EU country has 30 to 50 companies and they are all trying out the open data and to create value for the European economy,” she highlighted.
GeoBuiz Europe: Session on Public Policies and Commercialization of Geospatial and Space Industry
Mark Haaksman, Senior Manager Business Development Digital Cities, Royal HaskoningDHV
Pooja Mahapatra, Solution Owner - Geospatial, Fugro
The Netherlands has a spatial planning policy and it’s also planning to have a Digital Twin strategy. “The idea is to have a Digital Twin of the physical environment of the Netherlands. There are a lot of policies around energy transition, climate adaptation and we also need one million houses in the country and that is only possible when we have good spatial data infrastructure,” explained Noud Hooyman, Chief Geoinformation Officer, Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, The Netherlands.
Towards a green future Throughout the daylong panel discussions at the GeoBuiz Europe Summit, the words sustainability, net zero emission, climate change, and global warming were echoed. All trends and dimensions were eventually pointing towards these concern areas and the European Green Deal. The European Commission, in December 2019,
unveiled its flagship action plan to tackle climate change, the European Green Deal. The EU aims to become the first resource-efficient and competitive economy without net emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050.
The Green Deal covers ten policy areas and there is a call for private sector involvement and fostering innovation and digitalization. With this focus the implementation of geospatial data and technology is only going to expand. Anthony Baker, CEO, Satellite Vu, highlighted the value of open and commercial EO data: “As an industry we are making great progress and supporting the Green Deal. The radar satellites are identifying
Christoph Strecha, CEO, Pix4D
Hugo De Groof, Policy Officer, DG Environment – European Commission floods, whereas ESA is measuring climate change through microscopic details. The question is how to do this all at greater scale with both the scientific and commercial satellites? That’s the balance we need to find.” Various space agencies give open and free data but for agile and effective response, commercial EO data makes sense.
Echoing the same thoughts, Pacome Revillon, CEO, Euroconsult, said that the industry has been supportive of the Green Deal: “It’s a transformative time for the industry but the challenge is also how can the Green Deal policy turn into actual national policy and regulation, and create an ecosystem where everyone can offer services.”
Arnout Desmet, Vice-President – Maps, TomTom, shared an interesting case study on GNSS data and AI/ML. “We have access to 600 million connected devices that provide us on a day-to-day real-time with GPS trace data, which, with the help of AI/ML, is converted into congestion or traffic index. Every year we publish this for 400+ cities; it is useful for the road authorities to understand the nature and the evolution of congestion and its impact on liveability of cities. This year, as a pilot for four cities — Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, and London, we also connected this data with carbon emissions. London had the highest emission levels. Imagine the impact you can have as authorities in tackling the climate crisis?” he asked.
What kind of space infrastructure and geospatial knowledge would be adequate to achieve the Green Deal? Hugo De Groof, Policy Officer, DG Environment – European Commission, said, “The challenge lies in implementing the Green Deal and this is where geospatial technologies are going to play a big role. We have the ambition in Europe to create a Digital Twin of the Earth that will exist at all scales. Imagine the amount of data that will be collected and shared. That’s the reason we need strong public-private partnerships.”
Though there’s ‘humongous’ geospatial data coming from different sources, a serious data gap in the global fight against climate change still persists. Carles Franquesa, Founder & CEO, Aistech Space, shared an interesting outlook: “The complicated thing is not to cover the data gap but how we can generate future business with this amount of data. Initially, governments will push and will lead the utilization but at the end we need to create a business. We need to provide a specific value for the companies and the society as well.”
The European geospatial market is moving forward and evolving, starting from single data asset capture to integrated workflows to Cloud platforms. It’s been quite a journey and the momentum is not going to get any slower. The private industry, government, and academia — the three pillars of the geospatial ecosystem — need to prepare themselves because there will be much to do. Innovation doesn’t happen in isolation and opportunities and challenges in today’s demanding environment will need to be faced together.
Meenal Dhande
Associate Editor, Europe
meenal@geospatialworld.net
