| Data
Warehousing
Creating a data platform for business
intelligence
Data Warehousing is both strategic business
enabler and technology platform. It is a program dedicated
to the delivery of information which advances decision making,
improves business practices, and enables knowledge workers.
It includes the platform – data warehouse, data mart,
or database – and surrounding tools, skills, and processes
that provision detailed, historical, subject-oriented data
to knowledge workers for business intelligence (BI).
A data warehouse alleviates the knowledge
worker’s burden of finding, extracting, cleansing,
consolidating, and deploying information. It provides a
central point of data access for basic query and reporting
and highly sophisticated analytics and modeling. Companies
no long have to rely on “gut feel” for decision-making
or wait weeks for standard reports. A data warehouse can
help a company distinguish its best customers, enhance operational
efficiencies, deliver more accurate forecasts, target differentiating
customer segments, and develop innovative products and services
aligned to market demand.
» The
Baseline Viewpoint
» Your Value
» Best Practices
Business
Analytics End-User Categories
The
Baseline Viewpoint
A “more
than technology” solution requires business acumen
and tailored development methods
Baseline understands that building a data
warehouse that delivers on its promise is easier said than
done. Your knowledge workers have trouble explaining what
they need so IT can build it. You’ve discovered a
plethora of data sources with conflicting and unreliable
data. No one agrees on who owns the data. And your standard
IT development processes don’t seem to fit.
To further complicate things, the data warehouse
landscape continues to evolve. The vendor market is consolidating.
New data sources such as click streams, and Radio Frequency
Identification (RFID) are here to stay. Compliance and security
regulations place new demands on data warehouses. Outsourcing
development activities is commonplace. The 360-degree view
of the business continues to elude even the early adopters.
With investments in data warehousing growing
to tens of millions of dollars, failure is not an option.
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Your
Value
Repeatable
processes, high user adoption, and successful delivery –
the first time
Baseline has been building data warehouses
for 15 years – some of the largest and most complex
in the world. We’ve developed highly specialized skills
and repeatable approaches for requirements gathering, data
design, data migration, and application deployment. At the
same time, we tailor our core set of best practices to your
company’s unique development methods, cultural styles,
and management priorities. Baseline ensures successful data
warehouse delivery – the first time.
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Best
Practices
Baseline identifies best practices through
client engagements and participation in leading industry
associations, like The Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI).
Best practices for data warehousing include:
- Approach data warehousing as a program,
not a project.
- Practice a “business-driven”
approach to data warehouse development.
- Engage stakeholders prior to development.
- Secure business sponsorship.
- Avoid “big bang” projects.
Develop a long-term roadmap and implement in small, controlled
projects using rapid iterative development.
- Build credibility by delivering new
business value every 9-12 weeks.
- Develop discrete data models before
physically designing data.
- Introduce and implement metadata.
- Avoid “so what” functionality
to ensure business value.
- Define and measure success.
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