Esri Case Analysis

1. What is ESRI’s business?

Electronic mapping, geographical databases and spatial reasoning based decision aids.

2. What are the products and services offered by ESRI? Were they unique when ESRI first started offering a particular product and/or service? How has that changed over time?

ESRI products and services were ground-breaking and original at the time they were introduced, and it continues to lead the market with its mapping software technology. From the history of the firm, it is also evident that these have been updated and released in several versions since, as the company tries to keep up with the trends in new technology. This is also because with experience and expertise, the company has moved up the value chain. There can be doubt about whether these products are as unique or not today since there are many new technologies in the market and ESRI is no longer alone. The company maintains they are, especially since their customers continue to reward them with business, and because other companies offering mapping technologies do not offer the same back end package of supporting databases, and analytical tools to support decision making by data manipulation. However, there are several other decision aides that can use the data from the other mapping packages and provide the analytical capabilities.

3. How have Jack and Laura influenced the company so far?

Jack’s vision is to drive a change in the world using GIS software. His long term vision has sustained ESRI as a private company. He is instrumental in keeping the company focused on his long term vision and not be worrying about the bottom line like the firms who are answerable to Wall Street need to be doing. His modest ways have created a culture where people who work at ESRI do not behave in the same manner as those at similar technology companies. There is a real sense of the mission to change the world, to participate in the community (fire-fighting to space-shuttle debris...