Interview with James Ensor, VP of UK & Strategic Sales at Woosmap

We sat down with James Ensor, VP of UK & Strategic Sales at Woosmap, to talk about how location technology is changing the game for businesses. James works alongside companies from all sorts of industries, helping them solve real-world problems and stay ahead of the curve. In this conversation, we explore what’s driving the shifts in the industry, the hurdles businesses are facing, and what’s coming next in the world of location services.

Let’s Get the Basics Out of the Way First…

In a nutshell, what’s your role at Woosmap?

I work with businesses to solve problems. For some, it’s about making things run more smoothly; for others, it’s about standing out in a crowded market. Ultimately, my job is to figure out how location technology can make their lives easier and their customers happier. It’s a bit of consulting, a bit of strategy, and connecting the dots.

The Big Picture Right Now

You work with a huge range of businesses across different industries—what’s the one thing everyone’s trying to solve with location technology today?

Omnichannel. Everyone’s trying to crack the code on how to make the digital and physical worlds work together. It’s about creating smooth, personalized experiences—making sure the customer doesn’t feel a jarring disconnect, for example, between shopping online and showing up in a store. The bar is high, and everyone’s competing to meet it.

The Hardest Part

What’s the biggest challenge you see businesses struggling with when it comes to location services? Is it technical? Strategic? Something else?

I'd say infrastructure. Let’s say a retailer wants to show real-time stock levels online for every store and warehouse. To make that happen, you need constant data updates, live tracking—there’s a lot to it. The payoff, though, is huge. Customers can find what they need, where they need it, and you’re suddenly competing with the big players like Amazon with its next or same day delivery.

A Piece of Advice

For a business leader looking to unlock the full potential of location technology, what are the key things you’d say they need to get right?

Look at every corner of your business—your website, stores, warehouses, delivery routes, even how your employees commute. Start by looking for the friction. What’s slowing you down? What’s frustrating your customers? Location tech can do a lot, but you need to know where to use it first. Whether it’s logistics, store operations, or customer experience, there’s usually a missed opportunity waiting to be unlocked.

What’s Next?

The pace of change in this space is huge—what’s the one trend or innovation in location services you’re most excited about for 2025 and beyond?

AI, without a doubt. Pairing AI with location tech is going to change the game. It’s not predicting just what customers want, but where they’ll need it. Creating experiences that feel intuitive, almost effortless. It’s still fairly early days, but the potential is massive.

A Standout Moment

You’ve worked with so many customers—what’s one success story or moment that made you stop and think, this is why we do what we do?

Coming back to Woosmap in 2024 was a full-circle moment. Seeing how much the platform had grown, and the trust clients have in it—was powerful. Watching how something like our Woosmap JS Map became an essential part of their toolkit has been incredible.

Helping businesses evolve, and knowing we played a part in that growth, is what makes it all worth it.

Why Woosmap?

From your perspective, what makes Woosmap’s approach different? If you had to sum it up, what’s the key thing that makes Woosmap’s approach different? What keeps customers coming back and saying, ‘This is what we needed from a solution.’

Because we grow with our clients. Most clients start small—maybe a store locator or an address lookup. Then they see what’s possible. Suddenly, they’re using us for click-and-collect, 30-minute delivery, optimizing their logistics network—you name it. We don’t just hand businesses a tool and say, ‘Good luck.’ We’re in it with them. It’s a solution that scales with them. One retailer recently started with a simple search and now powers their click-and-collect, 30-minute delivery, and more with Woosmap.

What stood out most from our chat with James wasn’t just the technology—it was the human side of it all. At its heart, location technology is about solving problems that matter: helping people get what they need, when they need it, with less stress and fewer headaches.

And that’s what James and the Woosmap team are all about—making things easier, smarter, and a little more human.