27 June 2009, 12:53pm
Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, visits Ordnance Survey
The Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, visited Ordnance Survey’s head office in Southampton on Thursday 18 June to find out, first hand, about the new Ordnance Survey business strategy and the vital role geographic information plays in today’s world.
During the visit Chief Executive and Director General Vanessa Lawrence CB discussed the importance of Ordnance Survey’s work to the nation and showed Mr King how Ordnance Survey data is relied on by business, government and individuals.
As part of the visit, Mr King was given an overview of the new Ordnance Survey business strategy and an insight into the future direction and innovative work of Ordnance Survey.
Mr King was particularly impressed with the innovative work being undertaken with digital mapping and the contribution this could make to the mapping of regional economies.
While touring the head office Mr King was able to see the range of products and technologies on offer and shown real examples of how GI is used in business and communities. He received demonstrations on Ordnance Survey’s enhanced OS OpenSpace API and a look at OS MasterMap. As part of the OS MasterMap demonstration, Mr King was shown how the data has been used in the insurance sector to detect fraud and by local authorities to improve waste management efficiency. Mr King was even shown some aerial imagery of his beloved Worcester County Cricket Club and was impressed that the ground’s new pavilion had already been captured on OS MasterMap.
Mr King ended his visit with a demonstration from one of Ordnance Survey’s 300 surveyors. He was shown first hand how Ordnance Survey captures information and maintains the master map of Great Britain with 5,000 changes a day.

Each month we select a hot topic and a leading figure in the industry to write about it.Lack of Location Awareness is ‘Analytical Blind Spot’ for Organisations.
Traditional Business Intelligence has looked at the ‘who’, ‘what’, and ‘why’ around data, but has ignored the ‘where’. Location is a core analytical dimension. Within this data lies a vast pool of intelligence that largely remains untapped for organisations. This rich data source is particularly important for UK Public Sector organisations in enabling a single view of the citizen, delivering citizen self-services, improving compliance, and optimising cost efficiencies.
Location is ubiquitous and influences most, if not all, business behaviour and outcomes – yet a lack of location awareness remains an analytical blind spot for a large number of organisations who have not considered how the geographic and location aspects of the data they hold affects their business processes… More…
Mark Bishop
Product Marketing Manager EMEA, Pitney Bowes Business Insight