Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
it again. It is important as a management team to be in touch with what is
really happening on projects. Individual project team members often wonder
whether this tendency to rework projects is really what upper management
wants, or whether this is simply a pattern that has emerged without conscious
thought over time.
NOTE
The biggest data warehousing disappointment occurs when an
organization that lacks architectural direction results in the development of
multiple non-integrating data warehouses or data marts. This lack of purpose fails
to address one of the fundamental goals of data warehousing: supporting a single
version of the truth.
A CASE STUDY: THE NEED FOR ENTERPRISE RESPONSIBILITY
The term
enterprise
is often interpreted as an extremely large organization with
multiple, disparate lines of business that run independently. This type of large
enterprise faces challenges with coordination and collaboration when working
on enterprise systems development efforts, including a data warehouse. Similar
coordination and collaboration challenges exist for small and medium-size
companies too.
For example, a mid-size financial institution grew through acquisition, but
the company continued to run each area autonomously. The business focus of
each division was different enough that folding all operations together did not
make sense. Each division was run as a separate company, each with its own
budget and business goals. Within each division, there was no need to look at
data from the other divisions. With a lack of overall enterprise requirements,
architecture, or accountability, each division continued on its own path to deve-
lop solutions for its reporting needs. Each division was at a different stage of
exploration or implementation of data warehousing capabilities. The focus
of each was to support its own division.
As an enterprise, there was increasing need to look at more than just
high-level financials across the organization. Within the organization struc-
ture, the people who needed this integrated view were the executive team.
Although the audience is small in number, these are the users who have the
greatest need for information to support the decision-making process as they
set the direction of the organization.
Exploration of each division's business showed that while each division has a
unique niche, they have some customers in common. Moreover, the different
divisions have interests in similar industries too. By taking an enterprise view,
the organization was able to leverage its customer relationships and cross sell
products. The enterprise view also enabled the enterprise to identify
industry-specific trends over time to head off what could have been big
problems. The impact on each division was not large enough to cause concern,
but when added together, the impact could have been severe.
