Data Warehousing/Business Intelligence Survey
Observations
by Rick
Sherman, Athena IT Solutions
The 2004
ITtoolbox Data Warehousing/Business Intelligence
Survey revealed that nearly half of large
companies (those with more than 1000 employees)
plan to consolidate their data warehouses
or data marts.
Why are companies faced with consolidating the
very databases that were often billed as the “single
version of the truth?” What are the drivers
for these consolidations?
Let’s first look at what companies are
trying to consolidate. Large companies have a
lot of data warehouses and data marts. Almost
half (46%) of large companies had two or more
data warehouses. Over half (52%) had more than
five data marts with 30% having ten or more data
marts.
My guess is that these numbers understate the
amount of data silos throughout a company. IT
departments respond to surveys like this, but
IT is often unaware of all the data silos that
exist. For example, a lot of operational reporting,
as well as tons of spreadsheets that contain data
that business users have pulled data into (or
typed in) from who-knows-where fly under the IT
radar. These shadow systems often are not reported
in these surveys, so the extent of the data silos
is even greater than these numbers imply.
What happened over the last decade to create
these data silos?
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Back when the economy was buzzing, a phenomenal number
of projects—ERP, CRM, SCM, DW, data mart and BI—resulted
in databases being built for reporting and analysis.
People were so busy implementing these business systems
as fast as possible to meet business demand that nobody
looked at the consequences: creating data silos. Many
of these projects were built under the slogan of a “single
version of the truth.” It is an oxymoron to have
“multiple versions of the truth,” but that
is exactly what many companies built.
Now it’s time to pay the price. Of course, history
does repeat itself. Will Corporate Performance Management
(CPM) efforts create another slew of data silos? And
how about your ERP vendor’s DW/BI/CPM solution?
Et tu Bruta?
So why are people concerned with these data silos now?
As cited by almost three quarters of the respondents,
the top reason for data consolidation was improvement
in data consistency. Coming in second
at 54% was reduction of cost and overhead.
(Multiple responses were allowed.)
Data warehouse and data mart consolidation is one of
those rare IT activities where you can improve
efficiency while increasing the business value
of the system by eliminating data silos. This double
whammy is the result of a redesign of the data architecture
and underlying data models to reflect a single version
of the truth (provided no one else is making that claim
with another project.)
Business and IT have become aware of their “sins”
of the past, i.e. creating data silos with the resulting
problems – inconsistent business numbers, lost
business productivity trying to reconcile numbers, and
high application costs to maintain redundant/overlapping
systems. Government regulations such as Sarbanes Oxley
have driven the business to review their systems. And
the overall economic conditions have given companies
an incentive to lower the total cost of ownership of
many of their systems. It is ironic that as the data
silos have been discovered, IT spending and resources
have been constrained, making it much more difficult
for them to deal effectively with these data silos.
A word of caution: companies should not seek and implement
“silver bullets,” — yet another vendor
solution and “single version of the truth.”
The last thing they need is one more data silo to integrate
later on.
[What are your reactions to the survey, and what is
your company doing about consolidation? Feel free to
send
your feedback.]
Data Integration Advisor:
Implementing a Data Integration Center of Expertise
In my July 2004 column, "Do
You Need a Data Integration Center of Expertise?,"
I discussed these key points:
- You need to integrate data, not just create another
version of it. Data integration is hard work, but
it can and should be done.
- Data integration problems are usually the result
of people-related issues such as politics, project
ownership and budgets - not technology issues.
- Many companies don't admit or even realize they
have data integration problems. They only see their
investments in enterprise resource planning (ERP),
customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain
management (SCM) and data warehouse (DW) systems and
the terabytes of data stored in them.
These key points established that reining in the proliferation
of expensive, redundant data silos requires a methodical
approach that includes establishing a data integration
center of expertise (DICE). How do we change our approach,
using a DICE, and establish data integration as a critical
asset to our business?
To establish data integration as a business asset, you
need to create the following:
- Business and IT case for viewing
data integration as a fundamental business problem
that needs to be addressed.
- Data integration investment portfolio
with data integration as an infrastructure project
across all business and IT groups.
- Data integration center of expertise.
>>>
Read the complete article online for details on these
three points
White Paper Download
The following white paper is available for you to download
at no cost:
Ten Principles for Increasing the Business
Value of Your Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence
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About Athena IT Solutions
Athena IT Solutions provides data warehousing and
business intelligence consulting services to help businesses
increase the return on investment of their corporate
data. Athena IT Solutions founder Rick Sherman has more
than 17 years of business intelligence and data warehousing
experience, having worked on more than 50 implementations
as an independent consultant and as a director/practice
leader at a Big Five firm. He founded Athena IT Solutions,
a Boston-based business intelligence and data warehousing
consulting firm and is a published author, industry
speaker, instructor and consultant. He can be reached
at rsherman@athena-solutions.com
or (617) 835-0546.
© 2004 Athena IT Solutions |
