Norfolk Southern Selects GIS WebTech's Guru Technology

Norfolk Southern, one of the largest rail service providers in the United States, recently announced a strategic move to enhance its economic development effectiveness by partnering with GIS WebTech. The company chose GIS WebTech's Guru as the technology platform for its NSites online site selection service.

Why Guru?

Guru provides major advantages to Norfolk Southern, both in showcasing property listings as well as supporting internal economic development workflows. Guru is the most advanced site selection technology and the only application integrating Esri demographics, workforce data, infrastructure, incentives, and more, all within an easy-to-use, browser-based application.

“At Norfolk Southern, we continuously evolve our tools and strategies to meet the needs of our customers and partners. The latest update to NSites, powered by GIS WebTech’s Guru platform, enhances our ability to support business recruitment and project development. By integrating advanced data, mobile accessibility, and certified NS REDI Prime Sites, we are providing a dynamic, streamlined resource that simplifies site selection and helps businesses grow with rail,” said Craig Hudson, Group Vice President of Industrial Development at Norfolk Southern.

Showcasing Property Listings

Guru allows Norfolk Southern unprecedented flexibility to showcase its properties. For example, Norfolk Southern has taken advantage of Guru’s flexibility to promote its transload locations separately from its industrial sites, with each set easily accessible with one click. Norfolk Southern also highlights its NS REDI Prime Sites with unique branding and interactive property badges, and stages properties for specific target industries using Guru’s suite of tools including 3D virtual buildings. With Guru, Norfolk Southern’s team is able to host virtual site tours on the go and showcase potential property uses during a physical site visits, since Guru’s mobile version is the first to include complete 3D functionality.

Supporting Internal Workflows

Guru provides full support across major economic development workflows. For example, Norfolk Southern is able to provide one-click access to properties staged for the specific requirements of RFIs/RFPs, enabling their proposals to stand out and bringing their submitted properties to life. Norfolk Southern can then get detailed analytics on the RFI/RFP response, providing critical insight on prospect engagement. Similarly, Norfolk Southern can provide one-click access to properties, demographics, workforce, or any other relevant data in campaigns to target businesses, and then use Guru’s analytics to glean insight into the campaign’s effectiveness. Guru even provides analytics showing Norfolk Southern which properties are getting the most interest from site selectors.

The GIS WebTech team is honored to be selected by Norfolk Southern and we look forward to a long and rewarding partnership!