Data warehouses are centralized data storage systems that allow your business to integrate data from multiple applications and sources into one location. This provides an environment that is designed for decision support, analytics reporting, and data mining. When you isolate and optimize your data, you can manage it without impacting primary business processes.
In general, the benefits of data warehousing are all based on one central premise: warehousing solves the ongoing problem of analyzing separate data and converting it into actionable information you can use. Warehousing also allows you to process large amounts of complex data in an efficient way. When you successfully implement a data warehouse system, it’s possible to access the benefits associated with the practice— the very benefits that are making data warehousing a common practice for many businesses today. The following are some of the ways to increase efficiency, profitability and overall success through ETL and data warehousing.
- Enhanced business intelligence: The insight gained from data warehousing has a lot to do with improved access to information. Business leadership no longer has to make decisions based on incomplete information, so the decisions that affect strategy and operations are based on data-driven facts and supported by relevent information your organization has gathered over time. Another aspect of this is that leaders are better informed about data queries and can retrieve information based on their specific needs. According to Exforsys, the increased business intelligence you gain can be directly applied to business processes like market segmentation, inventory management, financial management, and sales.
- Increased query and system performance: Data warehouses are also designed with speed of data retrieval and analysis in mind. You are able to store large amounts of data and rapidly query it. These systems are built differently than operational systems, which are more focused on creating and modifying data. Data warehouses, on the other hand, are built specifically for analysis and retrieval rather than the upkeep of individual records.
- Enhanced quality and consistency: Data warehouse deployment involves the conversion of data from numerous sources and transformation into a common format. This means that data from multiple business departments and processes is standardized and consistent. In addition, individual units like sales, marketing and operations will all use the same data repository for queries and reports. This allows each department to produce results that align with other teams within the organization.
- High return on investment: The use of data warehousing also enables your business to generate a higher amount of revenue due to cost savings. Now that the practice of warehousing has been around for a while, we can safely say that analytic projects have a significant impact on a business’s finances. In fact, a study by the International Data Corporation found that such implementations have “generated a median five-year return on investment of 112% with a mean payback of 1.6 years.”
It is clear that when data warehousing is implemented and designed properly it can provide a variety of advantages to your business. For more information, email us at info@glowtouch.com
