Data Warehousing
Data warehousing is the sequence of operations which enables an organisation to store data and information received from various sources. A data warehouse is a central repository of information that can be analysed in decision-making processes. Thanks to its technology, historical data analysis could be implemented for business intelligence as well as data mining. In addition to this, it allows users to run queries/ access key data analytics within its platform.
Benefits of Data Warehouse Information
1) Managing Product Portfolios
By the help of data warehouse information, there could be a comparison for sales information of a firm in terms of quarterly or yearly data. Through this information, an organisation could easily manage its product portfolio such as repositioning the existing product or preventing the cannibalisation caused by the new product.
2) Customer Analysis
Customer Purchasing behaviour, buying patterns and the effect of trends could be tracked with customers data warehouse information to analyse the seasonality. This would help a company understand the needs and requirements of its customers. The information in the demographics of customers could even help the organisation to identify its target audience for designing its core marketing strategy.
3) Operations Analysis
Elimination of waste, reducing lead times and driving efficiency in the workplace have all become a priority for corporations. In this conjuncture, data warehousing contributes to an enterprise in terms of customer relationship management and analysis of business operations to identify bottlenecks within the opearation workflows.
Types of Data Warehouses
1) Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW)
Enterprise Data Warehouse is a centralised warehouse-type which is utilised in decision making. The uniqueness of EDW is based on organisation and representation of data. Moreover, this type of data warehouse provides the classification of data according to various subjects.
2) Operational Data Store (ODS)
Operational Data Store is the most famous data warehouse type used by organisations due to its capability of dealing with routine activities such as storing employee records.
3) Data Mart
Data Mart is designed for specific areas of the business, such as sales and finance. Data could be collected easily from different sources in an independent data mart.
Industries that use Data Warehousing
1) Airline
With multiple physical operation centers, data warehousing is important in the airline industry for efficiency purposes.
2) Banking
The analysis of customer becomes vital in the banking industry to provide tailored plans to their clients. From that sense, data warehousing has been commonly used in banking to identify the target audience.
3) Healthcare
When it comes to reading patient reports and prediction of outcomes, data warehousing becomes effective in data analysis and representation.
4) Public
Storing information of every individual becomes critical in public sector, especially for tax and policy records. Therefore, intelligence gathering is the area used with data warehousing to cope with these challenges in the business.
5) Retail
Buying patterns, purchasing behaviour and the effect of trends are all necessary data elements for the retail sector. All retail companies would like to track the information of customers to benefit from their marketing effort.
