Business must lead data warehousing

By Alex Kayle, Senior portals journalist

Johannesburg, 14 Sept 2009

If a company doesn't have a key sponsor driving the operation of data warehousing from a business angle, then data warehousing becomes an expensive white elephant sitting in the organisation.

This is according to Ryan Jamieson, director if IS Partners, who provided an overview of the role of data warehousing within a business intelligence (BI) solution at the ITWeb Data Warehousing conference in Midrand, last week.

Jamieson said there are pitfalls surrounding data warehousing, as it has the potential to uncover a political can of worms within the organisation.

He noted that information generated from data warehousing needs to be balanced with political implications and whether data warehousing will offer business value.

Jamieson added that data warehousing must be the right fit for the organisation, using relevant technologies. “The data warehouse is still relevant today to help an organisation adapt quickly to change and reduce complexity and it's a secure bastion and foundation for improved decision-making.

“Data warehousing is a key technology that a business has in its BI strategy; however, it needs to be adaptive to change. As business requirements change, the data warehouse must form a consistent foundation to meet the needs of the end-user. If you don't offer an element of truth in your data, the data will be useless.”

Jamieson pointed out that data warehousing is not a once-off project, but needs to be viewed rather as a long-term, continuous programme.

“Data warehousing must be owned by the business and business leaders need to become more involved in how the data is reported. Data warehousing is about taking information and moving it beyond historical reporting.”