The Applications of GIS in Improving Urban Businesses

Introduction
In a general categorization, businesses in urban spaces are divided into service, commercial, manufacturing, and technology and information groups. The components of urban businesses in various fields are related to the spatial characteristics and geographical location of the business. Geographic and spatial investigations provide the useful information for urban business owners. However, in recent years, less attention has been paid to the spatial parameters of urban businesses. The spatial analysis of customer, competitors and market behavior are important for development of business in urban space. It will make a better understanding of markets, competitors and customer behavior in the urban areas. Information is a basic tool for development of the urban business. In the past two decades, advanced industrial countries have focused on new information technologies as the core of development. Today, there are a variety of computer information systems available to provide information in various fields of urban business. GIS as one of these systems can be used for spatial or geographic purposes in urban areas. Given the complexities of urban space, GIS can simulate complex spatial analyses and provide appropriate solutions. This technology, using the strong functions, makes accurate decisions and optimal management of the resources in urban space. Small and large businesses in urban areas can use GIS as a useful tool for analysis and decision making. GIS capabilities in business analyst, network analyst, spatial analyst, 3D analyst and many other complex analyzers make it possible to accurately implement integrated systems including complete urban business systems in urban management. In this study, the use of GIS as an appropriate and highly relevant information technology is discussed for the development and improvement of urban businesses. 
Methodology
The city of Babolsar, located in Mazandaran Province, Iran, has been selected as the study area. This city has long been a hub for tourists and visitors due to its peculiar location. Given the significance of tourism as a major source of income, creating tourist infrastructures such as restaurants has found great importance. In this study, the applications of GIS as a suitable information technology for the development and improvement of urban businesses are initially studied through the library method. Then, to evaluate the location options and select the most suitable place to establish a restaurant in Babolsar, the best-worst combination was used as one of the multi-criteria analysis tools of GIS. Effective criteria and restaurant alternative locations are then determined based on previous researches and standardized criteria maps are produced. Each criterion is then weighted by experts using Best-Worst Method (BWM). The Weighted Linear Combination (WLC) method is ultimately applied to combine criterion maps with the criteria weights to determine the alternative scores in the expert-derived map. The map is divided into three classes of suitable, moderate, and unsuitable.
Results and discussion
GIS is able to answer a large volume of business owners' questions in the field development and improvement of the urban business. These six questions are When, Where, Why, How, and what. In order to improve business development, GIS has the ability to integrate economic, social and spatial data from customers, competitors and the market. Then, by analyzing and modeling the location-based data, it can use the results to develop and improve the urban businesses. Information technologies play a key role in business development, digital marketing, advertising, real time monitoring, customer support and long term business growth. This study has examined the applications of GIS as one of the information technologies in the context of business development. The strong relation between business and location makes GIS as a valuable tool to support information needs in business-related decision making processes and attain long term business success. The spatial-analytical capabilities of GIS, such as network and overlay analyses can be effectively used to explore and analyze the business situations in order to provide more informed business decisions, plans and marketing strategies. GIS has the potential to integrate the spatial (location), economic, demographic, and social data to model customers and competitors’ behaviors and answers the questions in the domains such as customer and marketing analysis, market prediction, investment, advertisement strategy, business site selection, market, and so on. GIS is helpful for the business owners in modeling and tracking the customer behavior so that they can answer questions about customers, business customer’s density over urban areas; the best business customer’s locations in city; the products and services of customers in a particular urban area; and other customer’s access to other locations.    
Conclusion
In recent years, most of the countries that are affected by continued recession or the ongoing financial crisis focus on developing and promoting businesses including entrepreneurship, marketing, and commerce processes. Information technologies play a key role in business development, digital marketing, advertising, real time monitoring, customer support and long term business growth. This study examines the applications of GIS as one of the information technologies in the context of business development. The strong relation between business and location makes GIS as a valuable tool to support information needs in business-related decision making processes and attain long term business success. The spatial-analytical capabilities of GIS, such as network and overlay analyses can be effectively used to explore and analyze the business situations in order to provide more informed business decisions, plans and marketing strategies. GIS has the potential to integrate the spatial (location), economic, demographic, and social data to model customers and competitors’ behaviors and answers the questions in the domains such as customer and marketing analysis, market prediction, investment, advertisement strategy, business site selection, market, and so on.