Early data warehousing efforts focused on separating the decision-support environment from operational transaction-processing systems. The ultimate goal was to create a centralized source of data for accurate, consistent reporting. Success came when individuals from different parts of the enterprise could attend the same meeting; each equipped with a common set of figures.

Recognize that the greatest cost of implementing a data warehouse comes from the process of extracting, transforming and integrating data from source systems. A typical data warehouse implementation is 70 percent or more extraction, transformation and loading (ETL). Initial industry attention centered on identifying sound architectural approaches to warehouse construction and management. This was essential to address the IT department's challenge of managing change as new source systems, business rules and subject areas were added to the warehouse project.

Today, data warehousing has entered a new era. The lessons gained since data warehousing became mainstream more than a decade ago have largely resolved the architectural challenges, enabling organizations to place more attention on the ultimate purpose of delivering value to end users. Today’s data warehouses have moved far beyond the executive information systems of the early 1990’s and are serving as strategic tools for many departments in an organization, such as marketing, sales, finance, operations and human resources. This increased role is driving the need for:

• data access and analytical capabilities
• increases the number of individuals in the organization directly interacting and benefiting from the data warehouse

IT managers can no longer afford to limit warehouse utilization to a set of standard queries and reports made available to an elite group of users.

Organizations maximize return on investment when the data warehouse serves as the foundation for creating analytic applications that are linked to critical business processes that are accessible to a broad range of users. Today, successful companies are leveraging their data warehouses to deploy applications such as activity-based costing, performance measurement, customer and product profitability analysis, merchandise planning, sales forecasting, marketing campaign analysis, customer modeling, profiling and analysis.

Data warehousing is an essential practice for all competitive enterprises. The most successful data warehousing strategies empower users at all levels in the organization with the information they need to understand and optimize business performance. The data warehouse is the central repository for:

• data consolidation
• cleansing transformation and storage in a format best organized for reporting
• extraction and data mining

The Normandy Group leverages the information stored in the data warehouse as critical components of a flexible, sustainable architecture that is specifically designed to maximize analytic performance and comply with data warehousing best practices. Best of breed solutions from The Normandy Group enable organizations to deliver application-specific data marts to a diverse and broad range of constituencies across the enterprise.

The Normandy Group's approach to data warehouse solutions is composed of two complimentary phases. These phases are often executed in parallel; however, they may be deployed as multiple phases. The first phase identifies and implements "Quick Hits" opportunities where benefits can be realized almost immediately. In the second phase, we leverage and extend the "Quick Hits" capabilities with a full Data Warehousing effort encompassing some or all of the following: extraction/transformation/load (ETL), staging and/or operational data store (ODS), data warehouse, data mart (s), and analytical applications. Data Warehousing is an iterative process. As users become familiar with the information that is available, new questions arise, requirements change, and new application needs emerge.

Implementation Phases

Phase One provides the ability to extract data directly from source systems into a repository that can be analyzed, queried or reported against. This will allow the client to solve some immediate needs within their organization and recognize some immediate return on investment (ROI).

Phase Two extends the solution to include a solid infrastructure to encompass corporate decision support. The Normandy Group leverages the data modeling, mapping and source extraction effort from Phase One and extend this capability to include additional business requirements. A decision support system (DSS) will be implemented as a base upon which to cleanse, standardize, consolidate and aggregate the data from the many source systems into one best source of information. From this decision Support System, The Normandy Group will populate the appropriate data marts.

Benefits

The benefits of the two-phase approach are based on the significant gains that clients achieve as a result of following the recommended implementation strategy.

• Clients start to realize an immediate (within 30 to 90 days) return on investment. Clients see demonstrable benefits since they have used Phase One to solve some immediate business issues.
• Results are immediate and tangible and allow future successes to build on the gains achieved during Phase One.
• Work is divided into smaller iterative tasks, easily implemented parts that allow momentum to gather as the project moves forward.
• Client investment in tools, infrastructure and end-user training are maintained and preserved. End users see no difference in access and data other than the quality and depth of available information becomes greater as Phase Two is implemented. End users maintain the same look and feel from the first day of the Phase One implementation.
• In Phase One, Clients gain an immediate short-term tactical advantage while building a long-term strategic framework in Phase Two.

Summary

The Normandy Group framework affords clients a strong, solid approach to data warehousing providing an excellent mix of short-term tactical gains coupled with long-term strategic techniques that have been proven to be successful in the data warehousing implementation arena.

The Normandy Group has core competencies in providing Data Warehousing solutions coupled with industry-leading OLAP tools. Together, these components allow for the creation of full, flexible and extensible solutions for client businesses in a wide range of industries. In conclusion, The Normandy Group can provide both the expertise and tools to create solutions that are governed by a sound project management methodology and that will allow clients to gain a competitive advantage and grow into solutions that will grow with an enterprise.