Is there still a future for the data warehouse in business intelligence (BI), and how do new technologies influence and impact business information needs?
This will be the focus of 17 experienced individuals who will speak at the ITWeb Data Warehousing conference, being held from 9 to 11 September at Vodaworld, in Johannesburg.
On offer are various case study presentations from the likes of Telkom, Absa, Foschini Retail Group and First National Bank, as well strategic insights sessions from organisations such as Harvey Jones and Sybase.
Estelle de Beer, practice manager at BI Practice, a Sybase company, will explore the extent to which social media and Web 2.0 impact BI. She will touch on subjects such as the influence social media has on companies and how social media and the Web can be used by organisations as a source of data.
Says De Beer: “Social media and networking sites carry some of the highest Internet traffic and the most up-to-date information available. As data warehouse practitioners, we need to understand the concepts of social architecture. There is a complete divorce from the traditional information-sharing mindset, yet it has very quickly become an acceptable and preferred platform.”
Honing in on the profit base of data warehousing, Keith Jones, MD of Harvey Jones, will speak about the changes that are taking place in the data warehouse, and how to use existing and future technologies to ensure the longevity of solutions.
“Data is a corporate asset that must be leveraged to drive efficiencies in the business. The whole purpose of capturing, analysing and reporting on the data is simple - drive costs down and drive profits up,” says Jones.
He adds that the right enterprise solution will always contain a mixture of the technologies on the market. “Relational, star schema, OLAP, in memory all have valuable places in the solution stack. To make the solution sustainable and scalable, the 'build once use many' approach must be applied,” Jones adds.
Rethinking roles
Ryan Jamieson, director at IS Partners, will focus on data warehousing's role within a complete BI solution. He will discuss critical tools for successful BI, new and emerging tools, and whether the data warehouse is still relevant as part of complete BI.
“A data warehouse is not BI, it is one of the key technologies in a multi-disciplinary approach to BI and it cannot survive in isolation. It is enhanced through data visualisation, master data management and many other associated technologies,” notes Jamieson.
Mervyn Mooi, director at Knowledge Integration Dynamics, will discuss how to ensure quality data and information for the data warehouse. “Data and process integration is a solution to remove duplication and examine governance, standard techniques and practices that would help ensure data and information quality,” he says. “Many data-sets and reports are evident, yet the business units in the organisation still lack consolidated and insightful information.”
Other important topics include what the challenges, success and risk factors of data warehousing are. Martin Rennhackkamp, COO of PBT Group, will inform attendees on these aspects and discuss possible solutions. He says it's important to note that BI initiatives using the best tools can still fail dismally. “The crux of risk mitigation and implementation success lies in the partnership between the BI competency and the business, the use of appropriate techniques, and an approach that matches the culture of the business,” Rennhackkamp stresses.
He adds that without the appropriate and timely presentation of correct information to the right levels of users, organisations will never succeed in managing themselves using information.
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