A layer of data analysis seems to be the icing on the cake for every aspect of the enterprise, even for networking giant Cisco.  The company that designs, manufactures, and sells networking equipment, announced that they have acquired ThinkSmart Technologies, a software company that delivers location data analysis using Wi-Fi technology.

ThinkSmart’s location analytics collects information such as movement within a venue, time of day, traffic patterns and dwell times.  The collected information will help enterprises and venue operators improve their customer experience, as the data would allow them to identify appropriate staffing levels, reducing wait times, optimize business processes, and improve customer flows.

Cisco’s technology, combined with ThinkSmart’s analytics, will provide location intelligence and analytics to service providers and enterprise customers, empowering them to gain more insight into the activity within their environments, and to better engage end user activities.

“The acquisition of ThinkSmart reinforces Cisco’s commitment to deliver an intelligent network by providing customers with enhanced tools, such as location analytics, that increase the value of the network,” Hilton Romanski, Vice President of Cisco, said in a blog post.  “This aligns with the core; one of Cisco’s five foundational priorities, by providing differentiated solutions within the infrastructure of the network.”

It’s a smart direction for Cisco, as WiFi usage continues to grow as the underlying infrastructure supporting our bubbling affair with smartphones and tablets.  What’s even more interesting is the primary reasons why we pull out our mobile devices on-the-go.

According to a recent report from JiWire,  62 percent of on-the-go consumers tag their social sharing post. More specifically, 91 percent of on-the-go consumers use Facebook, of which 88 percent location tag their posts on a monthly basis or more frequently; 51 percent use Instagram with 60 percent of those tag the location of their posts;49 percent location-tag posts to notify family and friends of their travels and experiences; and about one-third of users location-tag their posts or photos in attempt to connect with others nearby, or because the application automates it or makes it easy for the user to do.

JiWire’s report heightens the importance of a data layer over WiFi network usage, stating that businesses should take advantage of people’s location-tagging activities, as this will help them understand customer behavior to better serve them in the future.