Any company that interacts with data, needs to transfer data or uses software systems to collects data. The point of a data warehouse is to collect this data in order to get an overview and make decisions based on it. A data warehouse can be thought of as a repository: data is stored and organized in a way that makes it efficiently retrievable and searchable. Data can also be analyzed for trends and visualized.
Why Is A Data Warehouse More Than A Simple Storage Facility?
Today, companies use many different software providers, each storing data for themselves. Customer data, for example, is scattered across many systems, each with a different function.
But these separate systems need to communicate with each other to avoid manual retrieval of data from each system. Therefore, data is centrally stored in a data warehouse to which all systems and programs are linked. In this way, the data warehouse not only stores the data, but is also an interface or transfer point between the programs collecting the data.
This means that you can get much more interesting reports based on actionable insights from the data warehouse than from network software or from the network itself.
Data Warehouse Features
The data warehouse helps with operational mapping and provides information that can only be obtained through internal data collection. It provides output to several separate Excel files. Since you are using Excel as a database, you need to integrate the data warehouse so that you can access the data in a structured way and be able to audit and review it.
The data warehouse also enables transparency. Different departments within a company communicate and interact with each other and depend on their data. For example, accounting data can be important for sales. The data warehouse makes all data available to all departments so that they can make decisions.
This is a strategic and more efficient approach than writing emails every time you need data. It doesn’t just enable collaboration between departments. It also makes it easier for managers to keep track of what’s happening, especially in large companies.
The data warehouse also has a storage or backup function. In partner marketing, both partners and service providers provide data.
This data is centralized in the data warehouse and thus stored independently of service providers and partners. In addition, the data in the data warehouse is future proofed and stored for a long time, independent of the software that collects the data, and can be replaced at any time.
The collection of past and present data allows future forecasts to be made and, if necessary, appropriate measures such as projections, cash flow calculations and liquidity projections to be taken.
How Data Warehouse Works
Data warehouse is able to collect, store and search all internal data. From accounting records to customer profiles – to get an idea of how many software are available and how much they cost. On the other hand, by accessing the data warehouse, the customer can use the above functions directly and does not have to create them themselves.
The data source for the data warehouse are the products themselves. In addition, the data warehouse is continuously optimized and improved to provide customers with high quality data. For example, for a user with hybrid affiliate marketing, only part of the data comes from the DWH solutions.
The other part of the data is generated and collected on the public web. In such a case, a data warehouse consultant can help businesses to integrate other data sources. This will allow the customer to access data not only from their own data warehouse, but also from other marketing activities of the partner.
How To Decide On The Data Warehouse Service Provider
Similar to the search for a cloud service provider, there are a number of data warehouse providers on the market, such as, SAP, Informatica, Tableau, Snowflake, Amazon Redshift, and Microsoft Power BI. However, each company has to decide which vendor to choose based on its own skills, engineers, analysts, goals and objectives.
Do you have experience with data warehousing? Want to get involved but don’t know where to start?
Get in touch with a Data Warehouse Consultant today, and share your ideas with them. With the help of a reliable data warehouse consulting firm, you can discover the potential of big data warehouse for your business and put it into practice.