A primer on Data Warehouse for businesses who aims to grow and adapt to the increasingly data-driven world.

1. You + Data
Warehouse
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2. YO U + D ATA WARE H O U S E implementation of tools and process that allows
businesses to harness their existing data, to
In this increasingly data-driven world, proactive form a solid foundation to increase efficiency --
data management is no longer a luxury, it is a and a launchpad to grow.
necessity. Too much is at stake when data is not
maintained purposefully and fall into the state of
H OW S ERIOUS I S THIS ?
chaos. A business equipped with a Data Over the past two decades, large corporations
Warehouse can prevent that from happening -- have spent billions of dollars on data marts and
also, stands to gain both in cost-cutting and warehouses. The body of knowledge that was
revenue-increasing fronts. generated through these efforts is vast in
volume. There is a good reason for this:
WHAT IS A D ATA WAREHOUSE ?
Business data is valuable.
Let's start with what it is not. It is not
simply a Database. It goes beyond by
"Realizing the Not only it is valuable to
providing much needed data visibility,
potential of the owner, but it is also
correctibility, analysis, and alerts -- all
your existing useful for the data owner's
in an automated fashion.
data is the customers, vendors, and
first step other parties. For
A Data Warehouse brings data closer towards example: A smart business
to the side of the business that takes proactive data owner, using a Data
care of Accounting and Forecasting management" Warehouse, could offer
make it a crucial tool for making customized views that is
important, strategic business decisions. relevant and helpful to their customers; thus
creating a potential new source of revenue.
To put it simply, a Data Warehouse is an This revenue model was impractical to
Ab o u t n ex tC o d e r
We h e l p S M E ( S m a l l t o M e d i u m E n te r p r i s e s ) t o re a l i z e t h e p o te n t i a l o f t h e i r exi s t i n g b u s i n e s s
d a ta t o i n c re a s e p ro f i ta b i l i t y a n d c u t c o s t s .
O u r c l i e n t s s p a n s m u l t i p l e i n d u s t r y d o m a i n s , f ro m a i r l i n e t i c k e t i n g t o u t i l i t y b i l l m a n a g e m e n t .
B y fo c u s i n g o n D a ta Wa re h o u s e c o n s t r u c t i o n , w e b r i d g e IT d e p a r t m e n t s w i t h d e c i s i o n m a k e r s
w i t h i n a n o rg a n i za t i o n .
A re yo u lo o k i n g fo r w a y s t o m a k e eve n b e t te r b u s i n e s s d e c i s i o n s ? C o n ta c t u s vi a o u r
w e b s i te o r Tw i t te r : @ n ex t C o d e r
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3. implement before Data Warehouse technology came into existence.
D O I N EED ANOTHER S YSTEM?
Most small to medium enterprises today already have a system that
records transaction data. This system could be anything from a set of
spreadsheets to a custom-built software. Unfortunately, understanding
-- let alone analyzing -- data in the format that is stored within those
systems is difficult and time-consuming. Why is that? Simply because
those are designed for computers to process, which is important for
the sake of data integrity, but as-is, it is not useful in helping us make
decisions.
Data Warehouse technology changes this. Now we are able to Extract,
Transform, and Load (ETL) those same data into the
Questions that a Data format that is far more condusive for us to analyze, and
Warehouse Answers: to produce meaningful reports, and dashboards.
1 . How is the business doing? Having a Data Warehouse give us the ability to not only
2. How accurate is my forecasts? see our data better, but also to process it more efficiently
(cutting the cost of manual and error-prone data
3. How come the numbers do not transalation labor) and to bring more revenue into the
add up? business.
4. Why some of the figures do not
make sense? H OW M UCH I S THE C OST?
5. How can I show my customers An Enterprise-level Data Warehouse used to cost
that I am doing a good job for hundreds of thousands of dollars to implement and
them? maintain annually. Not anymore.
There are two forces that work together to make
affordable, high-quality Data Warehouse a reality in today's world:
1 . The increasing awareness of the value of existing business data
among small to medium enterprises
2. The maturity of Open Source software tools that allows businesss to
implement and maintain a Data Warehouse without being saddled by
expensive license and support contracts
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4. The most important fact that every business of these already come with the BI tools, which
owners considering the cost of a Data Warehouse helps in terms of software infrastructure but still
is represented in the chart at the center of this requires the right personnel to build the Data
page: S EVENTY- PERCENT OF THE COST OF Warehouse with.
IMPLEMENTING AND MAINTAINING A D ATA WAREHOUSE
With the tools in place, ETL scripts and reports
IS TO SUPPORT THE REQUIRED team of personnels.
can start to be written. Again, the level of
Who are these personnels? BI Consultants, experience and best practices that the BI
database administrators, ETL developers, and consultant should come into play here to speed
other positions that may be up the process. At this point, the
required by specific industries. personnel who will maintain the
Data Warehouse should come
The good news is that for the
into the picture and start to be
majority of businesses, the Data
familiar with the analytical data
Warehouse will quickly pay for
model.
itself once it is operational. And
when it matures, it will become The next and final phase is the
an indispensible part of the installation of alerts and the
business, not unlike a physical warehouse for a maturing of the Data Warehouse which brings
business that distributes goods. Is there an about the self-montoring and correcting aspects.
upkeep cost? Certainly. But to run that type of Usually, by this time the business already reaped
business without one is simply unthinkable. the benefit of increased visibility, error detection,
and automated reports and dashboards.
H OW TO G ET S TARTED ?
C ONCLUSION
A typical Data Warehouse implementation starts
with a review of the existing data. A competent Without any doubt, one of the most useful
BI consultant -- especially the ones who have innovation in the field of enterprise systems is
experience across different industry domains -- the knowledge base of Data Warehouses design
should then be able to come up with the analytic and construction. The number of decisions that
data model for your existing data without too are made by businesses running everyday is
much difficulties. getting more predictive and accurate. If you
have not yet considered a Data Warehouse as a
Next comes the installation of the software tools
part of your system, maybe it is time to have a
on a server. A cloud virtual server instance
second look.
which is easy to acquire nowadays is a good
candidate for hosting the Data Warehouse. Some WG
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