Data Warehousing: Benefits and Implications

information W behousing Benefits and ImplicationsWHAT IS DATA WAREHOUSING?The term information w arehouse or selective information memory board was first coined by Bill Innon in the year 1990 which was delimitate as a warehouse which is subject-oriented, integrated, metre variant and non-volatile collection of info in fend of managements end fashioning process. When referring to entropy warehousing as subject oriented, it simply means that the process is adult information about a particular subject rather than the details regarding the on-going operations of the lodge. Moreover, when selective information warehousing was referred to as integrated it means that the entropy or information which are ga at that placed from a list of sources are then all gathitherd to synthesize a coherent whole. On the new(prenominal) hand, info warehousing universe time variant simply means that the data avail able were identified on a particular period. Lastly, data warehousing as bein g non-volatile means that the data is stable and when a new data is added to the placement, the old data are never removed, instead they just remain there and this enables the organization to be able to give the management consistency in their business (Inmon, 1995).In the humanity of modern times with the advent of technological advancements inevitably affecting the businesses in major trends, there has as well as been a development and emergence of new measures, practices, and techniques which used technology to be able to entrust an strong solution to the problems in the organization with regards to the level and kind of information that the organization needs to be able to survive and prosper amidst the increasing competition in the market. Undeniably, one of this techniques and practices refers to the emergence of data warehousing as a tool helping todays businesses to be able to manage competition and the turbulent economic condition. The accept f the concept of data wa rehousing mickle be contributed to various researches and studies which were conducted in the past to provide various organizations with the means of getting information in a manner which is efficient, effective, and flexible. The data warehousing which is cognise today among the somatic practice is not what it was when it started almost two decades ago. The practice of data warehousing at once is a result of the experiences and technologies in the last twenty years.Bill Inmon and Ralph Kimball are two of the heavyweights when it comes to data warehousing. However, although their call are known in this field, these two scholars excite two varying views with regards to data warehousing. The paradigm which was illustrated by Inmon holds that the data warehouse forms only a part of the general business intelligence system. On the early(a) hand, the paradigm of Kimball come acrosss that the data warehouse is a conglomerate of all the data in the organization. Other researchers assume that there is no right or wrong theories among the two assumptions from the two heavy weighs in data warehousing. However, most of them aid the notion of Kimballs paradigm. They believe that most data warehouses started only as efforts from various plane sections jump on what they call as data marts until they develop and evolve to become a data warehouse.Further much, accord to Manning (1999), data warehousing ahs been heralded as one of the sustainable solutions to management information and dilemma and much(prenominal) besides provide the organization and environment which entails various benefits if they are practiced in the right way and if the perspectives are directed towards the right goal. The process of data warehousing is said to have the intention of providing an architectural model which faecal matter best provide an illustration for the flow data from the systems regarding the operation to the finale erect environments. However, according to the same au thor, one problems stems down from the data warehousing technique that is much(prenominal) a system is said to be too expensive to be affordable by some organizations or businesses. It is needed that data warehousing continues to attract interest, it is also undeniable that many projects are failing to deliver the expectations from what they are supposed to deliver and they still prove to be too high of accost to be handled by some businesses. However, to be able to justify this relatively high cost, it has been said that organizations should look at the large term benefit of the warehouse rather than simply looking at the short term benefits that such tidy sum offer.Moreover, data warehousing is also said to be designed to be able to support ad hoc data analysis, inquiry and reporting by end-users, without programmers, interactively and online (Heise, n.d.). The author also mentioned some let on factors which rat make the data warehousing practice a succeeder among differen t organizations. According to him one of the key ingredients to the success of the practice is to make the management, especially the higher management, aware and conscious of all the benefits which this tool entails and what can data warehousing do to improve the performance of the business. The author as a key to the success of data warehousing is choosing the right people to make it happen. By choosing the right people, the author does not slew the fact that the contribution of individual minds should be recognized to form a synthesis and a great whole. Training strategy, the right structure or computer architecture, a sustainable mission statement, showing early benefits, ensuring scalability, collar how important is the quality of data, and using only proven and effective methodology are some of the other key ingredients to make data warehousing a successful practice.THE BENEFITS OF DATA WAREHOUSINGDavid Heise was able to recognize some of the benefits of data warehousing. According to him some of the benefits that it offers include the fact that it has a relative orientation on the subject area, it has the ability to provide an integration of data which were retrieved from diverse and multiple sources, it allows data analysis from time to time, it adds ad hoc inquiry and reporting, it provides decision makers with the capabilities to analyze, it relieves the IT from information development, it ahs the ability to provide mend performance for complex analytic queries, it relieves the burden of processing databases which are based on transactions, it allows a planning process that is perpetual and continuous, and lastly, it converts corporate data to make them strategic information which can help them in planning for a better performance of the organization.Another benefit of data warehousing is that it enables and it helps different organizations in the strategic decision making resulting into formulation of strategic decisions which are geared towar ds enabling a better business performance and gentle better results. It can be assumed that most data warehousing practices are not think for strategic decision making because they are normally used for post monitoring of decisions regarding to how effective they are. Nonetheless, it should not be also disregarded that data warehousing, according to LGI Systems Incorporated, can also be sued for strategic decision making and can be used profitably.Another benefit of data warehousing is that it enables the user to have unlimited access to a relatively very large amount of enterprise information which can be used to potentially solve a large amount of enterprise problems which can dismantle be used to increase the profitability of the company. A very well-designed data warehouse can expect a greater return-on-investment with unlimited benefits nad the ability to better assess the risks associated with the organization. jades DATA WAREHOUSING resolvingFor most of the companies whi ch are implementing SAP, the next logical step for them would be the consideration of data warehousing as a useful tool and technique in the conduct of their business performance. In some situations, there are companies which use data warehousing as being parallel with the SAP transaction system. SAP has usually been regarded among organizations as their most important reference for transaction data. With that, it can be regarded that data warehousing, when linked with SAP, can provide a greater solution and better transaction records (Khan, 2005).It has been said that the main intention of data warehousing is the ability to be able to analyze data from a variety of sources which can support businesses when they a making decisions. BW or the Business Information Warehouse is regarded as being the SAPs data warehousing solution. BW refers to an end-to-end data warehousing solution which uses Sap technologies which are already in existence. It is composed of various layers and types of information which are essential in building the BW architecture and in executing data warehousing solutions which will be utile in the companys business performance. SAPs data warehousing solution can also be helpful in other aspects such as quotation processing, order processing, delivery, analysis and comparison and administrative and management functions (Fu Fu, 2003).The Business Information Warehouse, being SAPs data warehousing solution, has been developed specifically for business to be able to potentially analyze and gather various types and kinds of relevant information which will provide statistical information about related transaction in the best ways possible. The BW is helping the knowledge workers to quickly mine and gathers the data of the business it is also equipped with pre-configured information on reports and models.COMPANIES USING DATA WAREHOUSING AND ITS IMPLICATIONSAn example of a known company which uses data warehousing is WalMart. Being the worlds lar gest retailer, many say that the company should be also the organization with the largest data warehouse which is going to serve as the database of its inventory and all transactions related to their business performance. The data warehousing also has a big price reduction on the business of WalMart. According to the management of the worlds largest retailer, more than any other purpose, their data warehouse is helping them to be able to make decision support systems between the company and its various suppliers. Aside from that, another implication of data warehousing on WalMart is that it enables the suppliers to be able to access a large amount of online information and data which will be helpful with their suppliers in terms of improving their operations.One example of companies using and reaping the benefits of adapt warehousing will be various pharmaceutic companies, or in a larger scale, the general healthcare industry. For most of the pharmaceutical businesses which are und er operation, they were able to acknowledge the fact that they lack a sustainable focus on their promotional practices, resulting to diffused sales efforts. With that, they regard that data warehousing technique has a big implication in their business because they regard such as the best medicine and remedy for the aforementioned problem. They are even using data warehousing to be able to attain a sustainable militant edge against other businesses in the industry. In the case of pharmaceutical companies, it has an implication also in the merchandising department. Data warehousing helps the merchandising department, through various information contained, to come up with promotional and marketing activities which can yield them maximum results. Moreover, data warehousing also has an implication on the human resources department of the organizations because they can also help in the effective allocation of people and resources (Desai, 1999).REFERENCESDesai, Amit For Pharmaceutical Comp anies, A Data Warehouse Can be Just What the Doctor OrderedFu, Henry, Fu, Biao SAP BW A Steb by Step Guide 2003Heise, David What is Data Warehousing n.d.Inmon, W. H. What is a Data Warehouse? Prism 1995Khan, Arshad SAP and BW Data Warehousing How to Plan and Implement 2005LGI Systems Incorporated The Data Warehousing Information Center Accessed on April 9, 2010 from http//www.dwinfocenter.org/strategy.htmlManning, Ian Data Warehousing Adopting an Architectural View and Maximizing Cost Benefits 1999