Geo SURA is a geographic platform that integrates key elements for the analysis of opportunities and risks in companies, facilitates decision-making with a higher level of information, and enables situations to be transformed into business opportunities and the generation of resilience. 

* This article was published in Geociencias SURA Journal | Issue 2 | September 2017.

Global trend in information technology.

Technological advances in recent years have driven the increasingly frequent use of geomatics, which allows for the interactive visualization and analysis of georeferenced information associated with points, lines or polygons, through maps with details at global, regional, national and local scales. 

This visualization of information allows for optimizing mobilization times, improving the quality of services or planning business development, which makes the isolated consultation and analysis of large alphanumeric databases a thing of the past. 

SURA, observing this trend, developed Geo SURA, which responds to the information management needs of its clients' businesses. This information system was implemented to support them in the integration of information from different sources, and in the management and making of strategic and operational decisions, through a simple, intuitive and agile tool. 

Geo SURA as a lever for Trend and Risk Management (TRM)

This system, as an information integrator, plays an important role within SURA's Trend and Risk Management (TRM) model, because it facilitates its clients' development and appropriation of the knowledge necessary to identify and understand those trends and risks that are not evident and that in the short, medium or long term may have an impact on the achievement of their companies' strategic objectives. 

LUsers have a large number of possibilities for consulting and analyzing the trends and risks of their businesses., such as: 

• Visualization and geographic analysis of the properties that comprise the operations, the logistics network, national and international suppliers, current and potential customers, and other actors in the value chain.
• Integration of production data, storage of goods, raw materials or finished products, provision of services, and marketing.
• Access to specific studies at a global, regional, national or local level.
• Consult the results of the risk, production and prioritization matrices of your facilities, considering different criteria and attributes.
• Overlay of thematic maps on business trends and risks.

In the analysis of the interrelations of nature with the strategic objectives of companies, The system allows to visualize and analyze natural threats such as earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, droughts, forest fires, tornadoes, hurricanes and natural phenomena in general, it also allows for the integration of hydrometeorological and climatic information (historical and forecast), data on water sources, historical crop yields, land uses, among others. 

How does Geo SURA work?

Access to Geo SURA requires a unique user per person, which gives the possibility of establishinger your profile according ton your information and functionality needs, personalizing your experience in using the tool. 

The system allows the dynamic processing and analysis of information at different stages:

• Identification of a question or need to be solved using geographic information systems. 
• Organization of data and necessary sources of information, with the support of SURA. 
• Loading data and thematic maps useful for analysis. 
• Interactive analysis of alphanumeric information in a geographic environment with a wide variety of options in graphical output, table formats or map representations.

Features and functionalities 

Geo SURA is an intuitive tool for the user, which allows you to make the most of all its functionalities without the need for prior knowledge of geographic information systems. 

It allows the integration of information at a global, regional and local level, results of specific studies, business data and, in general, any type of available information that is of interest to the user. 

These functionalities offer a wide world of possibilities to superimpose a wide variety of data interactively within a single analysis, which allows decisions to be made with a better level of information, reducing uncertainty. 

“Geo SURA is a tool for decision making.” 

Juana Llano, Vice President of Insurance at Suramericana.

 

Countless applications

The applications of Geo SURA in the various areas of knowledge and business are variable and unlimited, and can be extended as far as the available information and the user's imagination want to go. 

These are some of the uses that are within the range of applications: 

• Surrounding analysis: forces of nature, society and technology, megatrends (demographic changes, scarcity of natural resources, global governance, hyperconnectivity, urban planning, variability and climate change, among others), sectors and activities of the economy, and needs of society at different geographic scales. 
• Market analysis: market niches and customer segmentation, based on consumer trends and business trends. 
• Strategic and operational business planning: visualization and analysis of the supply chain, targeting of sales forces, project management, route optimization, evaluation of real and potential impacts (positive or negative) on communities, management of natural events and those caused by man. 

Fonts

• Esteban Herrera EstradaCivil engineer from the University of Medellín.
• Jorge Santiago Victoria DominguezCivil engineer from the University of Medellín.
• Juana Francisca Llano Cadavid. Lawyer, specialist in Financial and Business Law, Civil Liability Law and Insurance from the Pontifical Bolivarian University, Reinsurance specialist from the Pontifical University of Salamanca, Spain.