Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence - What are they and can you afford to be left behind?
Data is power. In the age of IT we've all heard this truism before. All business relies on data in some form. The sole trader shoe shop on the high street in a small town makes business decisions based upon their data all the time, but it is more likely that this data is easily collected and translated without the use of computers or databases. For example, if the stock room is heavy on a particular style of shoe but another style has sold out, it's easy for the business owner to know after a busy Saturday's trading, that one style is more popular than another, therefore enabling him or her to order more of that style and perhaps reduce the price of the other or send that stock back to the supplier. That is Business Intelligence in its simplest form - taking data and applying good information management to make good business decisions. That's not to say that the small business owner does not benefit from computer systems as many do and even come to rely on them.
In larger enterprises, however, where the product range or list of services offered is probably vast, and sales are quite a lot higher than the small business, sales data may be stored in many different systems and in large volumes and interpretation and analysis of this data is not only fundamental to the business knowing what they are doing right and what they need to improve upon, but also requires specialist tools and expertise to put that data into the correct format and also to present it in useful ways - Enter Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence. Many medium to large sized companies today have accepted the need for this expense and have factored it into their budget but a surprising number still have not realised the value and power of information management and analysis. It's these companies that will surely eventually be left behind unless they arm themselves with the tools and strategies that their competitors are using. After all, how long would the shoe shop owner, in our earlier example, survive if he or she kept ordering more of the stock that didn't sell? That would be ludicrous to anyone with an ounce of common sense yet larger businesses are making this type of mistake every day on a larger scale but instead of ignoring information, they are not arming themselves with the information in the first place.
It has been claimed by the price comparison service 'uSwitch' that by the year 2020, Internet sales will make up 40% of all purchases. A large majority of the remaining 60% of sales will still be managed using computer systems, so the data is there and waiting to be worked on and analysed. In this fast paced, sometimes ruthless world of modern business, Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence are no longer add-ons that can be introduced as and when the extra funds are available - They are now essential to the success and growth of a healthy business and choosing the correct specialist solution can be the difference between survival or collapse.
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Article Tags:
business intelligence
,information management
,data warehousing
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,data
,database
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