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Building a data
warehouse offers a number of benefits:
- it provides one reliable version of the truth, eliminating
time wasted on reconciling different data sources and arguing
about the facts and their interpretation;
- quicker, easier access to existing corporate data - for
everyone who needs it;
- reducing the time needed by technical staff to maintain
multiple inter-related reporting systems and support ad
hoc requests;
- highlighting gaps in available data, and deficiencies
in the existing data capture and validation processes;
- clarifying data ownership, and hence responsibility for
data quality;
- facilitating the sharing of information and knowledge
based on a common understanding and terminology.
Implementing OLAP
tools can:
- streamline the delivery of management information, by
replacing hundreds of static printed reports with dozens
of interactive on-line reports;
- empower users to extract, manipulate and analyse data
without IT support;
- reveal patterns, exceptions and trends in business performance
and facilitate comparisons between different market segments;
- free specialist staff to spend more time on analysis and
less on data manipulation and cleansing;
- enable reporting by exception, bringing management attention
to what is different.
Data warehousing and OLAP should be viewed as enabling technologies,
which may need to be implemented as part of a wider business
improvement programme, e.g. identifying and retaining profitable
customers. Investing in one or both for their own sake, or
as part of an IT-led project, is unlikely to provide a justifiable
return on investment.
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OVERVIEW
