Survey of key GI players within Europe - EC GI & GIS Portal

Firstly the organisations are (usually) listed in a ranking order from the top down. Where it could be
obtained the most recent annual turnover is stated, converted to euro. In cases of currency conversion
one of two on-line converters aquariussoft.com or yahoo.com have been used, converting the
national currency on the day the report was written i.e. during June/July/Aug 2003. Where used, the
term Billion (Bill) refers to the USA definition = 1,000 million. All national flags used as part of the
Annex 2 Directory of Organisations are used “courtesy of http://www.theodora.com/flags/ used with
permission”.
Type
The organisation status is written where it is known. In many cases this is written as the information
appears from its source. There are occasions where the term “PLC” is written to indicate a public
company although it is understood that the abbreviation PLC might not correspond to all legal
jurisdictions or have the same legal meaning in each country (i.e. in France the equivalent would be a
Société Anonyme - SA).
Sector
A list of sectors in which each organisation is active is given. The abbreviations used are:
CG Central Government
LG Local/municipality Government
Uti Utilities
Tel Telecomms
Tra Transport
Ems Emergency services
Edu Education/Research
Con Consumer
LBS Location Based Services
Ret Retail and commercial
Fin Financial
Def Defence and Military
Hea Health
Env Environment
Cri Crime
Prop Property/Construction
Oth Other
The list is by no means exhaustive (ESRI, for example claim to be active in 30 vertical markets). For
many entries it would have been impossible, for reasons of space, to include all the market sectors
served by each organisation (e.g. National Mapping Organisations). For this reason this section of the
table in places only includes the main sectors served by an organisation, or is indicative of the types of
sectors served.
Products
Similarly, for reasons of space, not all products are listed, but hopefully enough to indicate the nature
of the business involved, and on occasions individual products (with Hyperlinks).
Turnover
The annual turnover figures that are given are generally accepted as being the gross revenue of the
organisation as it is recorded on it’s income statement for the financial year in question (e.g. from an
annual report, the survey questionnaire or a website). In many cases a turnover figure as such is not
appropriate i.e. for a National Mapping Organisation that receives a percentage of its income from
revenue and a percentage from Government budget, grants or contracts. Where possible these
differences have been quantified in the table or described in the text. In other cases questionnaire
respondents have been reluctant to provide a figure because of commercial sensitivity or because the
GI part of their business only represents a percentage of the overall figure and to provide a number
might be misleading.
Staff
Staff numbers are also taken from the latest available source, usually the annual report, the survey
questionnaire or a website.
Directories
The directories in the annexes to this report provide a listing of the organisations features in the main
body of the report. Directory 1 is an alphabetical listing. The remaining annexes contain details of the
specific product and service types that each organisation provides. At this stage the directories are
only populated with the details of organisations for which data was received either directly from them,
or via the inputs from the various National GI Associations (mainly from the questionnaires). As such
the product and service directories are not a complete listing of all the organisations listed in Directory
1.
Survey of key GI players within Europe Page 6