RSK Group is the driving force behind diverse global projects, across sectors including water, energy, food and drink, infrastructure, urban development, mining and waste. The group has grown through acquisitions and currently comprises more than 200 businesses, many of which use geographic information system (GIS) solutions routinely for collecting, analysing and sharing geospatial data.

An audit of GIS usage revealed that, within RSK, there were twelve separate licence agreements with Esri UK for Esri’s GIS software. In addition, across the group, RSK businesses were making use of a variety of GIS software solutions but wanted the opportunity to expand their use of GIS to improve their process efficiency. It became clear that there was an opportunity to centralise access to GIS services and data and, thereby, make more licences and capabilities available to more businesses within the group.

In place of the twelve separate licence agreements, RSK Group entered instead into an Enterprise Licence Agreement (ELA) with Esri UK. This strategic decision enabled RSK Group to make GIS services and solutions available to more teams throughout the organisation and opened up a plethora of new opportunities.

The ELA provided a catalyst for the creation of a centralised repository for geospatial data and apps in ArcGIS Online, known internally as RSK Atlas. “For the first time ever, we now have a central GIS hub that is available to everyone across the business and provides access to a growing amount of data and content,” says Anthony Jones, Principal GIS Consultant, RSK Group.

Within the group, many teams now use ArGIS Online and ArcGIS Pro for data management, data analysis, data interpretation and data sharing. For example, ArcGIS Pro is used for interpolating survey data, producing visual impact assessments and mapping land use in agricultural land management.

In the field, several businesses rely on ArcGIS mobile solutions, including ArcGIS Survey123 and ArcGIS Field Maps, to collect data efficiently and accurately on everything from ecological surveys and landscape assessments to building structural surveys and social questionnaires. In social surveys across Europe, Africa and the Middle East, for example, ArcGIS Survey123 has been used to solicit the views and status of local communities about proposed developments.

ArcGIS Experience Builder is used extensively for building interactive web apps and websites for sharing project information with colleagues, clients and subcontractors.  Indeed, RSK Group has developed literally thousands of web maps within its ArcGIS Online portal supporting hundreds of projects across the world. Such web apps provide a central “single source of truth” for projects that include a variety of stakeholders and can cover large geographical areas, making collaboration and coordination of project resources far easier.

Some teams have used ArcGIS Experience Builder and the ArcGIS StoryMaps app to create engaging stories for sharing information with the public and other stakeholders.  ArcGIS Experience Builder has been used to support a variety of public consultations, allowing stakeholders to visualise proposed developments in the context of their own location and in some cases provide feedback via embedded forms.

Wider access to advanced GIS tools
With its ELA providing more licences, RSK Group has been able to make the sophisticated functionality of ArcGIS available to more teams and businesses, throughout the group. “ArcGIS has become such an integral part of many of our processes that it is difficult to imagine how we could deliver our work these days without the tools that we have access to now,” comments Jones. “ArcGIS offers advanced functionality that allows our GIS professionals to develop bespoke tools and automate previously manual processes.”

Cost-efficient business processes
Those teams that have replaced paper-based data collection methods with ArcGIS mobile apps have significantly improved the efficiency of their processes. They no longer have to enter data manually or carry out lengthy data quality checks, saving hours of effort on every project. “The efficiencies we make with ArcGIS are helping to reduce survey times and the amount of post-processing required, allowing us to undertake projects of greater scope that otherwise may not have been possible,” Jones says.

Effective communication with stakeholders
ArcGIS supports effective communication with a wide range of stakeholders, by making complex project data easy to understand. ArcGIS can be used to facilitate collaboration between colleagues on multi-disciplinary projects, as well as improve engagement with the public and clients. In one recent initiative, RSK used ArcGIS Online to published a digital preliminary environmental information report summary, making it easier for people to explore information about the environment in the study area and see the significant effects in a geographical context.

Opportunities for business development
RSK Group now intends to make more strategic use of ArcGIS to help it grow and win more business. It is already using ArcGIS to gain a deeper understanding of projects at the tender stage, fine tune costings and prepare detailed, competitive bids. Next, it plans to use ArcGIS to improve understanding of where its specialist teams are located and where opportunities exist for new acquisitions or new project proposals. “There is real potential to use ArcGIS more as a business development tool, rather than just as a project support tool,” notes Jones. “There are so many possibilites for using ArcGIS throughout the group.”