Data warehousing must become intelligent

All businesses have data about their business operations, customers, buying practices and thousands of other variables. Many businesses use data warehousing to get a handle on this data in order for it to help make informed business decisions.

But, says Bruce Jones, sales support manager at the South African subsidiary of the global SAS Institute, there's more to data warehousing than collecting, organising and storing data.

SAS is an acknowledged world leader in business intelligence and data warehousing.

"While data warehousing is a strategic imperative that enables corporates to respond quickly and efficiently to shifting market conditions, companies which focus on extracting intelligence from that data will achieve the greatest return on investments in CRM (customer relationship management), supplier relationship management (SRM) and other mission-critical applications," he says.

"A data warehouse is the basis of analytical applications - applications which make sense of the large amounts of data drawn from a variety of platforms, formats and even physical locations, such as operational systems, e-channel, supply chain, and more.

"But data alone is meaningless - companies can drown in the data their various operational applications generate.

"Once collected, the data must be transformed into information in which users have confidence. Indeed, companies live and die by the intelligence they can draw out of their data."

According to Jones, while data warehousing is a strategic imperative - performing a vital function by helping to pull data from multiple sources, and then cleansing and organising it - intelligence is derived by using a combination of data warehousing, business intelligence and advanced analytics.

"It's through analytics that data is turned into the intelligence that helps answer specific business questions, the effect of which can be measured in the company's bottom line," he says.

"Data warehousing does not compete with business intelligence and analytics. Rather, they enhance each other and provide a 'Return On Intelligence' when integrated."

In order to provide a foundation for rapidly and easily obtaining high-quality and consistent information throughout the enterprise, SAS has developed what it terms its 'Intelligence Architecture'.

"An Intelligence Architecture combines data warehousing, business intelligence and analytic intelligence to alleviate the complexity of enterprise data management and accommodate the needs of both business users and IT professionals," Jones explains.

"The SAS Intelligence Architecture does more than just collect and store information, it also manages and shares information throughout the organisation. It's a framework that builds a foundation of information that provides a true 360-degree view of the enterprise by integrating industry-leading solutions in data warehousing, business intelligence and analytical intelligence. Organisations are therefore assured of one version of the truth, and consistent information," he concludes.