e-Data: Turning Data into Information with Data Warehousing (Addison-Wesley Information Technology Series)

Over the last ten years the strategic use of detailed data has changed the face of business. This change was made possible through the use of data warehouses, which are now widely accepted for their role in the delivery of decision-support and business-intelligence applications. Today's data warehouses are the critical hubs of such burgeoning strategic initiatives as e-commerce, knowledge management, database marketing, and customer relationship management. Given this, a working knowledge of the fundamentals of data warehousing is essential for today's executives, managers, and other professionals who must maximize the power of data warehousing in both existing business contexts and future strategic initiatives.

Written especially for these business professionals, e-Data: Turning Data into Information with Data Warehousing covers data warehousing and its surrounding technologies in a straightforward and engaging way, illustrating how companies are leveraging their data warehouses to serve a wide range of business needs. This book clearly lays out what business people should know about data warehouse implementation and the best techniques for evaluating and justifying new data warehouses and data marts. This book provides:

• Definitions of key data warehousing terms
• Descriptions of emerging database marketing applications that mandate detailed data
• A primer on data warehouse technologies, as well as a clear taxonomy of different analysis types
• Staffing and hiring tips for data warehouse development teams
• A review of the diverse uses of business intelligence across various industries
• Key questions to ask your vendors and consultants
• A fresh perspective on the politics involved with data warehouses
• Checklists and success metrics for evaluating data warehouse effectiveness
• Coming trends in the use of e-data in business

Inspirational real-world case studies and staff profiles appear throughout, showcasing data warehousing's "vanguards"--companies that have succeeded in achieving long-term financial and strategic benefits. Included are Bank of America, Charles Schwab & Co., Qantas Airways, GTE, Royal Bank of Canada, Sears, and Twentieth Century Fox.

e-Data provides invaluable information about data warehousing as a whole, its development and strategic value, the technologies that support it, and its effect on corporate decision making--information that will enable you to turn a gold mine of raw data into valuable information, position your company for market leadership, and enhance customer satisfaction.

Topics covered: Data warehouses, decision support systems, data mining, target marketing, cross-selling, sales analysis, industry applications, database tools, vendor selection, project planning, and pitfalls.

Data warehouse adoption is increasing 30-40% per year, and data warehouse technology is evolving rapidly to serve new requirements. e-Data: Turning Data Into Information with Data Warehousing is the complete manager's briefing on what this technology can do today, and how to achieve optimal results.

• Start by understanding why data warehousing has generated so much excitement throughout the business community;
• review four types of decision support analyses commonly performed with data warehouses;
• understand how data warehouses support powerful new database marketing applications; and
• see data warehousing at work in a wide range of industries.

Next, master data warehouse technologies, understand today's best practices for implementation and staffing, and learn the tough questions to ask vendors before you make product commitments.

e-Data includes

• detailed metrics for evaluating the success of a data warehouse;
• techniques for identifying both "hard" and "soft" benefits; and
• "from the trenches" advice on what to do next, once your data warehouse is running successfully.

For IT managers, business professionals, consultants, and others who need to understand the benefits of the latest data warehousing technology.

Foreword

E-commerce. Knowledge management. CRM. ERP. Smart cards. Data mining. It's true that in the vast realm of technology, the term data warehousing has recently ceded ground to some whiz-bang buzzwords. Even with data warehouse adoption rates steadily increasing by 30 percent a year, the Web and its patois have drowned out discussions of even more advanced technological developments, rendering state-of-the-art technical breakthroughs a second-page story.

• By using customer segmentation, Bank of America is getting to know its customers even better.
• Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. is applying the same customer satisfaction principles on which it has built its leading brokerage business to its data warehouse end-users.
• Qantas Airways was able to predict the Asian economic crisis with the data warehouse, and is gearing up for an encore.
• GTE is socializing e-data across the enterprise and across the country.
• The California State Automobile Association is doing more than delivering new marketing programs with its data warehouse, it's motivating cultural change.
• Canada's largest bank, Royal Bank of Canada, doesn't let different vendors get in the way of delivering best-of-breed e-data across its business.
• The State of Michigan's Family Independence Agency uses its data warehouse to behave more like a cutting-edge commercial business than a government bureau.
• Twentieth Century Fox may well change the face of the entertainment industry with its data mart.

These case studies and others should at a minimum serve as examples by which you can measure your own progress with e-data, and at best provide you with some great role models.

Requisite Caveats
This book is replete with examples of both successes and failures. It takes on some of data warehousing's sacred cows, including exalted methodologies, big consulting companies, venerated data models, and empire-building managers. Of course, there are exceptions to these and other evils portrayed in the book.

* Business value is threaded throughout every page – this book is written for both IS/IT people and business process owners. Both groups will have no problems understanding every chapter and neither group will get bored.

* The chapters on decision support and the primer on the underlying technology were particularly interesting to me because each are complex subjects and Ms. Dyche managed to present both in a concise manner without leaving out any detail.

* Implementation issues provided in chapter 6 should be required reading by every IS/IT professional and project manager before they are allowed within a mile of a data warehouse project. This chapter is filled with advice that could have only been accrued by surviving numerous tough projects and learning from them. It appears that Ms. Dyche did just that and one would be foolish to not read this chapter carefully.

* Case studies are real, go into a lot of depth and provide an array of insights and ideas. I recommend that all of them be thoroughly read – there is a lot to learn.

* Perils and Pitfalls cited in chapter 9 are brutally honest and hit home. The same for the "dirty little secrets", which expose some dumb practices by vendors, IS/IT and other players. Read and heed.

Other things that I personally liked about this book include questions to ask vendors (a list of questions for hardware, database, application, data mining and various tools vendors provided in Chapter 6), and the 5 questions your consultant should ask you (as a consultant I immediately incorporated this information).

This is a book for everyone, business and technical, and is written by someone who is obviously experienced and knowledgeable. It is also represents some of the wittiest, clearest writing I‘ve encountered in a long time, which makes reading what could have been a dry tome a real pleasure. The book deserves a solid 5 stars and Jill Dyche deserves congratulations for writing when I consider to be the best book on information business value ever published.

She begins by explaining in simple, but not condescending terms, what a data warehouse is, its value to business, and key objectives of data warehousing. While I admired her ability to describe complex facts in clear terms, I especially enjoyed the list of trite data warehousing aphorisms. Mr. Dyche‘s style is to always provide balance. She comes across as passionate about every topic, but is equally quick to show the darker side of things. This she does throughout the book, and it is one reason why this technical book is such a page–turner.

The next chapter is a thorough discussion of decision support that covers the mechanics, and provides illustrative examples that transform concepts and theory into the practical and achievable.

Chapter 3 is devoted to the topics of data warehouses and database marketing. This is where Ms. Dyche skillfully ties together the business and technical aspects. She also provides the most complete explanation of what exactly customer relationship management it (the term is so bandied about these days that most people have no idea what it really means). This chapter provides excellent material for marketing and MBA types, and will hopefully provide IS/IT folks with ideas on how data warehousing initiatives support business processes. The case studies in this chapter reinforces key points of facts and discussion, and also showed the bridge that needs to be built between IS/IT and business process owners. I came away with this chapter feeling as though I had a mandate to build such a bridge.

The next chapter, 4, is a panoramic view of how various industries use data warehousing to their advantage. Ms. Dyche recommends that you read them all because you‘ll learn much by looking beyond the borders of your own industry segment, and I completely agree with her. I couldn‘t resist jumping to the telecom industry first, though, and was astonished at not only how well Ms. Dyche understood and articulated the issues, but in how well they were presented in 9 pages. She gave the same thorough and insightful treatment to retail, financial, transportation, government, health care, insurance and entertainment (although the page count varied from one industry to another).

Chapter 5 delves deeper into the technology and can be easily understood by IS/IT folks who may not be data warehouse experts, as well as business process owners who don‘t want to be experts, but may be interested in how the moving parts fit together.

Implementation and finding the right vendors are covered in the next two chapters. I had to smile when I read the accurate portrayal of "Good vs. Evil: A tale of Two Project Plans." This is required reading for every project manager who finds her– or himself managing a data warehouse project. Here Ms. Dyche takes a poorly developed project plan that is unfortunately representative of most and shows the flaws. She then shows what a good project plan looks like. Also pay close attention to what she has to say about qualifying and selecting vendors in chapter 7. Although she herself is a consultant who works for a small firm she is not the least bit reticent about providing a balanced view of the good and bad of consultants and vendors, as well as the relative strengths and weaknesses of large firms vs. small ones. Both honesty and humor come through here.

Because I have a "thing" for cost analysis and ROI I especially liked chapter 8 that covers the data warehouse business value proposition. Like every other chapter this was one the mark and insightful. However, the real insights (not to mention a touch of wit) come in chapter 9 – the perils and pitfalls. First she discards the tired list of pitfalls that have been circulating and comes up with a fresh set of "New Top 10" pitfalls, which hit home and impart more wisdom that you can imagine. She then segues into an expose of ten dirty little secrets, which are refreshing in their frankness and insight. Ms. Dyche really steps up to the plate here. Apparently she was on a roll when writing this chapter because she caps it off with a piece on the politics of data warehousing and eight signs of data warehouse sabotage. She ends with a chapter titled, "What to Do Now" that offers yet more advice and insight about how to proceed if you need a data warehouse or if you already have one.

This book is packed with facts wrapped in wit and sparkling prose. It contains advice and wisdom that would take years to accrue, and is usually jealously guarded by consultants and vendors. Yet the author, a consultant, freely dispenses this advice and wisdom, which makes this book so valuable. It earns far more than the 5 stars available and is strongly recommended.