Unfortunately, no digital technologies provider has developed the cure-all where one application can run every facet of your business and analyze all data sources. Until that day comes, the Data Warehouse (sometimes referred to as the Data Lake) will still be of paramount importance for your business. Data warehousing can be approached from many different angles, as referenced below, but our goal is to set you up with the BI solution that best meets your current and long-term needs. Some of the data warehousing decisions we will help you make include:
- Data Warehouse vs. Data Lake
- Real-Time vs. Batch Oriented
- Cloud Based vs. On-Premise
- Self Service vs. Centralized
- Inmon vs. Kimball
Design Phase
Our goal in the design assessment is to better understand the insights that represent the pulse of your business (i.e., customer satisfaction, revenue, margin, inventory), the data assets that exist within your organization (i.e., databases, software as a service (SaaS), spreadsheets), and the interactions your employees and customers have with data each day. The deliverable of this phase is a blueprint and timeline for how we would recommend managing your data assets via a central repository (aka single source of truth).
Build Phase
Based on the blueprint from the design phase, the build phase involves various iterations in combining your data into a cohesive and comprehensive solution. We work with you on setting the priority and suggest embedding individuals from your organization on the delivery team to aid in understanding and adoption. In tandem with the build of the data warehouse, we are also working with your business users and analysts on the best methods for visualizing your data. Common questions of this phase include:
- Who is the audience?
- How will the data be accessed (browser, mobile, operations center)?
- What action can be inferred or taken from the data presented on the visualization?
- What collaboration is needed to correctly interpret what the data is telling us?
Because businesses are always changing, and new data is constantly being on-boarded, the build phase can last forever. Our goal is to train your users on the entire process, so that they can continue the evolution and be champions for fostering further adoption within your organization.