Tensing: Delivering State-of-the-art Solutions based on ESRI ArcGIS

Tensing

Dave Laurier, Managing Director, TensingDave Laurier, Managing Director
Operating as one of the leading Geographic Information Systems (GIS) consulting companies in the Netherlands, Tensing is focused on innovation, client engagement, and high-end technical expertise. The company provides consulting services, project management, and GIS development and administration for clients across the Netherlands and beyond. With a staff of over 65 in their Netherlands office, and part of the Avineon Group, Tensing provides solutions built upon its partner platforms, ESRI and Safe Software (FME).

On the consulting side, Tensing offers everything from system integration services, to software deployment or development, to support or advisory services. Following is the conversation that CIO Applications had with Dave Laurier, managing director and Otto Huisman, international business director of Tensing to comprehend the company’s data integration technology and GIS accessible and applicable to the clients.

What are the trends that are having an impact in the Esri Consulting space this year, and how is Tensing planning to leverage these trends and evolve?

Key trends that are continuing to have an impact are Digital Transformation, which continues to provide increasing demands for spatial data and locational intelligence, new (ESRI) Data Models, and increasing demand for AI approaches to help analyse data. Over the last years, we can see the significant increase in focus upon locational data in the business sector in general—specifically, businesses using real-time approaches that leverage data from mobile devices and connected sensors. With data becoming a strategic asset, every company wants to be using all of its data better, and with specific AI approaches there are new possibilities for not just analyzing data to find patterns, but for knowledge extraction from massive data. This is not a new phenomenon, but what we can see is that the techniques for doing so are becoming more mainstream, and Data Scientists are now a standard part of most businesses working with data on a significant scale.

We have an online platform for object recognition from imagery that uses deep learning techniques, and our team of data scientists is working on integrating a range of AI and machine learning approaches into the ESRI platform for several clients.

In terms of data models, the ESRI Utility Network is also a very interesting development. We have a number of clients who manage and operate linear assets or provide services for linear assets, and we see a lot of demand for a network model, which brings the benefits of both linear and spatial/ geometric networks into a single data model. We already have considerable experience with the Utility Network and are currently finalizing a proof-of-concept implementation at one of our international clients, a water distribution company in Belgium.

Please elaborate on the challenges that clients face in the Esri Consulting space and how is Tensing effectively addressing these issues?

Tensing is active in a wide variety of application domains. In our experience, data management and approaches for leveraging data are the main concerns of the C-suite focused on IT. On the business side, we can definitely see topics such as real-time data, machine learning and dashboards which are leading the discussions.

Otto Huisman, International Business Director

A key impact of digital transformation and the proliferation of smart devices has put companies and organizations under increasing pressure to leverage the growing volumes of increasingly complex data efficiently. We work with our customers to understand both their short term and long term challenges to arrive at a plan which fits both their budgets and timelines, drawing upon a technology stack built around Esri and Safe software.

How can Tensing help clients tell stories based on their geodata through its specialty Elevating Spatial Intelligence?

We aim to elevate spatial intelligence by providing our clients with detailed insights into their data—for example, by creating processes that automate complex data processing or analysis— which ultimately help to derive actionable business intelligence. Having a lot of data is a great start. Still, it is though understanding its context and performing the appropriate analyses to be able to visualize the data in ways that promote understanding and (ideally) new insights that real business value is generated.

We support many of our clients with architectures and strategies for managing massive datasets, as well as approaches that ensure maximum value can be extracted. Naturally, we have certified AGILE/SCRUM practitioners and coaches to help implement such projects in well-defined development cycles based upon our clients’ brief.

Please site a case study on how Tensing has enabled clients to overcome hurdles and attain desired outcomes.
Heijmans Infra—one of the largest civil engineering contractors in the Netherlands. Here, the challenge was to develop a solution to help Heijmans optimize the process of asphalt road marking. Our solution was to develop a mobile app that could handle the complete inspection process digitally. Because this digital collection is immediately shared with the client—in many cases, the municipality or province—approval of the repair can be registered online. Upon approval, the contractor receives a notification so that they can start work immediately.

What steers Tensing ahead of the competition?

We are experiencing good growth in terms of revenue, number of clients, as well as the size of our workforce. While we are not directly focusing on our competition, our key objective is to continue doing the things which we are doing to see this trend continue. I do think Tensing has some clear differentiators which are worth mentioning here:

We have a highly qualified team. At last count, we have 32 ESRI certified consultants, and 11 qualified FME certified professionals—the highest number in the Netherlands.

We innovate—for example via the ‘’Tensing Talent Contest’’. This initiative solicits direct input from our staff, in order to continue to develop new and interesting services with direct market relevance. One notable development here is Geographic Language Processing, which allows users of Portal to talk to their data via a chatbot (https://www.tensing.com/ en/labs/glp).

We are a truly international company, with more than ten different nationalities represented among Tensing employees

We believe that together these features allow us to provide excellent quality of service to our clients and provide ongoing growth potential in international markets.

What does the future hold for Tensing?

The very recent acquisition of Tensing by the Avineon Group is a huge step forward for Tensing. We are very excited to have become part of the Avineon Group as of 27 January 2020. Avineon Inc. is a US company operating since 1992 in the areas of information technology, data engineering, and locational information services, with HQ McLean, Virginia, and offices in Canada, Belgium, France, The Netherlands, the United Kingdom, India, and the Middle-East.

Avineon offers advanced information-management systems to support business processes in the domain of data engineering, data analysis, data visualization, data integration, and machine learning. We are very excited about the growth potential which this acquisition presents; Together with Avineon, we look forward to expanding the Tensing brand, particularly through our international service offerings, as well as targeting new potential client groups.

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