What Can Data Warehouse Consulting Do For You?
Are you a “Mr. Know It All”?
Sometimes, not knowing enough about something may be costing you instead of offering you benefits. You may have just bought a bagel at a local coffee shop, but entering the café, you may have passed by the blackboard without noticing that with every bagel, you get a free coffee. So you see, this happens in our routine life and you resent your hastiness once you become aware of it.
Above was a simple example. However, businessmen make a range of investment decisions in their daily routine without being aware of the true or complete benefits, which may indirectly be costing them. Coming to the point, knowing about data ETL processes and data warehouse consulting today will benefit you more than looking for answers after you have injected your money.
What is Data Warehousing?
If you inspect closely, very few companies, in reality, possess a true data warehouse. Instead, they actually have a dumping room where excel tables are copied from main computer systems, after slight modification. The future lies ineffective data management, and for this to be the case, you need to have a data warehouse that helps you store and retrieve huge amounts of data without disturbing the workflow.
The data warehousing concept is a simple one. The process involves extracting data periodically from the daily work systems that mainly include ERP systems. The data received by, or entered into these systems is transferred to a dedicated server which includes a data warehouse. When the transfer is complete, the data is formatted, cleaned, validated, summarized, re-organized, and supplemented with data from various other sources. The information that emerges from the data warehouse is then used for reporting and analysis using several reporting tools. The reporting tools use functions like canned reports, ad-hoc queries, and dashboards.
Building a Data Warehouse
Building a data warehouse itself is not such a daunting task, however, the planning stage involves keeping a keen eye on the key business processes to help design a flawless and streamlined data processing structure. An example of different processes a typical business has included staffing, training, sales, and accounting, among others. Although these processes are different in their nature, they share many-dimensional entities, for example, the employees who are being trained may move on into the staffing or sales department. Therefore, data can be merged for common dimensions. Again, this requires in-depth knowledge of business processes and the workflow that can help with the flow of the design.
In summary, if you are considering building your own data warehouse with the help of your IT department instead of opting for data warehouse consulting, the following steps can help you achieve your objective:
- Define the Processes
- Define the Sources of Data
- Define the Dimensions
- Define the Grain (level of detail)
- Create a Star Schema (7 dimensions are ideal and workable – well-planned)
- Specify Data Points
- Select the Columns
Investing in Designing a Data Warehouse
Not opting for professional expertise i.e. data warehouse consulting, puts you in a difficult position since you are relying on your in-house IT department and other key business executives to develop an effective process. Before injecting more money into business intelligence systems and data warehousing, you need to be fully aware and up-to-date about the trends in the industry. Giving yourself a short deadline to learn about the changing business methods and IT can go against you in the long run.
What Can Data Warehouse Consulting Do For You?
Making the most of your investment in data warehousing requires in-depth research and careful planning. With so many data warehouses, data repositories, and other data storage locations, designing a system for effective ETL of data can be a burdening task. Data warehouse consulting can help bring expert opinions and skills into your decision-making process, and help you achieve your goals sooner than you think.
Planning ahead is the key, and experienced data warehouse consulting services can help eliminate any mistakes.
Our Recommendation
Exist Management LLC (ExistBI) is the certified and leading business intelligence systems development, IT solutions training provider around the globe. Exist Management LLC has brought together the business and IT industry by providing impeccable products and solutions designed to enhance the decision-making processes and improve the overall experience of doing business in this modern, technology-driven world.
They understand the importance of data to a business, and therefore help in planning and adopting sound business intelligence systems design and implementation strategies along with providing expert data warehouse consulting. It offers top-notch SAP BI, Informatica, and other services to help your business grow to extreme heights without taking unexpected (wrong) turns. With ExistBI, you can learn any business intelligence system software through experienced and certified software company professionals and representatives.
Now you can conduct your day-to-day operations with more confidence. For more information, visit www.existbi.com. You can also contact us on +1 866 965 6332 (Canada / US) or +44 (0) 207 554 8568 (UK / Europe).
