Focus on South-eastern Europe

Geodis Brno operates in the fields of surveying, photogrammetry and sales of survey equipment. Established in 1990 as one of the first private companies in former Czechoslovakia, the company has grown into a group of ten companies working in five countries.<P>

Founded in June 1990 by three Czech surveyors and an Austrian survey office, the company was among the first to be licensed legally to carry out geodetic activities in the former Czechoslovakia. Dynamic development and expansion in business activities quickly led to a growing number of employees and enforced a move to new headquarters in 1995. In 1991 came the founding of daughter-company Geodis Fotogrammetrie, and Geodis Slovakia in Bánská Bystrica and Geodis Praha in Prague followed separation of the Czechoslovak Federation. Since 1991 the company has had three departments: sales, surveying and photogrammetry.

Scope
A very important acquisition took place at the beginning of 2002 with the take-over of the second largest survey office in the Czech Republic, GB-geodezie. In 2006 subsidiaries were established in Romania and Bulgaria. With nine daughter-companies, the Geodis Group as a whole supplies the full spectrum of services in the field of geo-data, employing in excess of 370 people and reaching an annual turnover of €21 million. More than two hundred survey experts work daily on hundreds of projects covering cadastre, design, setting-out, construction and design. Our photogrammetric department, one of the best equipped of its kind in Europe, provides the basic material from which we produce orthophotomaps, digital terrain models, vector maps and city models for clients worldwide every year. In 2000 a special laser-scan department was established and we now offer the complete range of applications for airborne Lidar survey and terrestrial laser scanning. Another department works on data conversion and digitalisation for CAD/GIS. Our philosophy is to supply first-class data usable on various platforms, including those of Bentley, Intergraph, Autodesk and ESRI, but also many others.

Equipment
We work with the most modern technologies and our current fleet consists of five aircraft equipped with digital and analogue cameras and GPS/IMU systems. Survey crews have at their disposal high-end Topcon total-stations and GPS units. Up-to-date hardware and software for data processing is a must, allowing us to supply first-class quality products and maintain our market position. The main activities of the Business Department lie in distribution and reparation of optomechatronic devices and appliances. The department is an exclusive distributor of a wide range of products from Japanese producer Topcon Corporation for the Czech and Slovak Republics and for Romania. It offers optical survey instruments, GPS and laser devices for the building industry, machine-control systems for road construction, and instrumentation for opticians and ophthalmologists.

Projects and Customers
The customer is the key to success for any company, and our customers include government institutions, national cadastralagencies, road and highway authorities, large private utilities, and construction and design companies. It is satisfying to us that most of our clients return and remain long-term partners. We are presently working on a unique project, a colour orthophotomap of the Czech Republic, resolution 20cm and update frequency three years. This is self-funded and the resulting data will be offered to a wide range of customers as off-the-shelf products. One of our big international projects is the Flood Risk Map of River Jiu in Romania. With a budget of €6 million, we are leading a consortium to prepare topographical documentation of the river basin area and mathematically model the floods. This study will be used for flood protection planning.

Focus on Future
The concept of focusing on the future is enshrined in the company motto and we have experienced significant growth over recent years, mainly as a result of entering south-eastern European markets. We believe that rapid development in Romania and other Balkan states will continue and we are therefore strengthening our efforts in this region. At the same time we have taken the first steps towards business development in the Middle East, where we also expect to be involved in projects. And, of course, to optimise serving clients we are constantly improving our technologies and products. This year we have presented our own method for managing oblique images and initiated broad offering of True-Orthophoto and Fast-Orthophoto products.