Data Warehouse: Implementation, Benefits, and Problem Solving

This essay provides an overview of data warehousing, highlighting its significance in business decision-making and knowledge management. It discusses the benefits of data warehousing, including the maintenance of data history, restructuring data for business relevance, integrating data from various sources, ensuring data consistency, and improving data organization. The essay also addresses the problems that data warehousing solves, such as the lack of organized data storage in organizations, the challenges of managing diverse data types, and the need for historical data in business operations. It explains how a data warehouse can be applied in business operations through the ETL process (extraction, transformation, and loading) and the creation of data marts for different users. The essay concludes by discussing the implementation of a data warehousing system using parallel execution and emphasizing the importance of sustainability plans and maintenance approaches to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the data.

Running head: THE DATA WAREHOUSE 1
The data warehouse
Student name
Institution

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DATA WAREHOUSE
A data warehouse is a big storage of data from a wide range of resources which is crucial
in guiding decisions. It was formerly used for the population data organization and the resource
analysis by the government. In my view it is also a good system when used in the business
sector. Data warehousing is the activity accumulates structured data from many sources so that it
can be compared and well analyzed to enhance business planning and intelligence. The users of
this tool has a better executive insight into corporate performance. This enhances its functionality
in the business situations. It is also evident the sources the sources used by managers nowadays
help them in getting information necessary for making decisions (Reddy, Srinivasu, Rao &
Rikkula, 2010). Sometimes the tools are not efficient and manager’s end up getting unclassified
and incomplete information and this makes it hard for them to compute valid decisions. It was
formerly used as a reference to negotiate contradicting records and accounts in businesses but in
my view it can be used to accumulate information that can be of use even in the managerial field.
I preferred to use this tool due to its effectiveness in operation. Availability of
information coming from many sources make it have a sufficient bank of data required for
detailed business analysis. It also improves the quality of data, and this produces consistent
impressions and conclusions. (Inmon, Strauss, & Neushloss, 2010). I prefer the data warehouse
to decision support because the latter only provide relevant information if the user was involved
in the initiation, development, and evaluation. It is also user driven. It cannot analyze on its own.
The other knowledge management tools are way too expensive to install and maintain for
example content management systems.

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Benefits of the data warehouse
Maintenance of data history
The data warehouse keeps information copies of all the transactions carried out in the
organization at a particular time. That makes future retrieval of the data possible in the same
state as it was stored.
The data is restructured in a way that it becomes relevant in the business
The data warehouse restructures the data uploaded to that system to a form that even a
stranger in the organization can work with them (Bouman& Van Dongen, 2009). An example is
the business accounts which are computed in a double entry system where the accountants can
use it to calculate the books of final reports.
Integration of data from different sources
It brings together related data coming from various sources for more straightforward
analysis. It is now more accessible for the management of the business to conduct the functional
study without having to waste time categorizing the data into the various types.
It provides information to the organization consistently.
Contrary to other knowledge management tools the data warehouse has consistency in the
way the data flows to the business (Hazen, Boone, Ezell & Jones-Farmer, 2014). Practical

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techniques are applied to make sure that at no time there lacks the relevant data required in
making tactical decisions that affect day-to-day operations in the organization
Data organization
It arranges and also disambiguates repetitive data. This helps to improve the quality of
the records kept in the business for example inventory valuation. It will also assist in avoiding
the errors caused by the accidental repetition of data.
Adds value to the operational applications
An example is the customer relationship and services. Time to time data is stored in the
system, and once a complaint is raised, the organization can use the kept transactions information
to solve those conflicts amicably. The operational staff also benefit from the data warehouse
when doing a self-performance assessment.
The problems solved by the data warehouse
Scholars have discovered that many organizations lack a system which is capable of
storing data in an organized manner. In the business activities which is my area of interest, the
past data is very crucial in the present (Miller & Han, 2009). An example is a manufacturing firm
needs to have all the inputs bought, used and the remaining so that they can be able to determine
their financial position for that fiscal year.
Some of the purchase records may be cumbersome to keep in the large and busy
organizations, but the data warehouse knowledge management tool will help them much in
different areas. The transactions will be classified along with their dates and commodities

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purchased so that even in the future it will be possible to maintain the stock records in the
business.
Nowadays many business firms are expanding regarding size and complexity. The new
challenge posed by this advancement is that the data received takes many forms and maintaining,
organizing them is difficult and expensive. The data warehouse will provide the opportunity to
the organization to store and manage all data immaterial of its nature for possible future use.
How will the data warehouse be applied in the business operations?
In every day in the business operations take place in the premises. They are mostly
recorded in the inventories and books of accounts. When the data warehouse is introduced the
copies of the transactions information is put into the staging area. In the staging area, the data
from all activities taking place in the business are kept in the same format. For example, if the
money coming from the international transactions is from different countries, then they should be
converted into one standard unit (Chen, Chiang & Storey, 2012). An example is exchanging
currency into the US Dollar.
The data is then stored in the warehouse in that aggregate form. The data can also be
categorized into data marts. A data mart is a collection of data well analyzed and converted to fit
the needs of a particular user. In the business context the transactions data can be kept in marts
that can be used by each of the following; finance manager, operations manager, human resource
manager, and the finance auditor. In this manner, the data kept analyzed into different marts that
can serve each of the above. The benefit of this is one user's access to the data does not affect the
use of the other client (Thuraisingham, 2014). The information is in the mart is also well

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modified to meet the needs of the various users for example in the finance manager’s data mart
answers the needs like knowing the change in the value of money over time.
The process of creating the database in the data warehouse follows the ETL format. This
means the first step is data extraction (Han, Pei & Kamber, 2011). This involves obtaining data
from the source to the stage base. In the stage base, the data is transformed to give meaning to
the data. The final step is loading the data to the warehouse where it is stored in the form of a
data mart.
This warehouse tool is the best-fit knowledge management tool that fits the needs of the
business. As seen in another process, the data stored in the data warehouse is in its purest form,
and this makes concluding leisurely. Take for example the human resource performance index
data. Once the data is well organized in the data warehouse (Aji et al.,2013) even in the big
organizations, then it is easy to monitor performance trends by the manager. The manager can
know the impact of some variables on the performance of the employees.
Data warehouse implementation
In the implementation of this system, I would opt to use the parallel execution. Here the
new system works alongside the old one for some time but after some time the new one is
implemented fully. The data warehousing system is a bit complex and involving the direct
implementation method will inconvenience the workers in the organization.
In that process, we will create a conceptual data model. Here we will determine the
subjects relating to the data which will be expressed in the form of fact tables (Waller & Fawcett,
2013). The performance indicators for example production and profit values determine the
format in which the events will be stored. The dimensions chosen are then linked to the

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performance indicators where the entities are entered in the rows of the tables. It is worth noting
that the data should be synchronized before it is put to this process. Careful planning will enable
the experts to construct a system that will have data organized most accurately.
The next step is carrying out the sustainability plans of the data warehousing structure.
To this effect, time-to-time evaluation tests are conducted to check on any dysfunctions in the
system (Zhou et al., 2010). This move is essential some of the data kept in this system are very
delicate, and any misinterpretation will negatively affect the business operation.
The maintenance approaches are also crucial in making of any knowledge management
tool. It will help in ensuring that repairing breakdowns become easy in case they occur.
Conclusion
The knowledge tool of the data warehousing has been widely used by the governments to
keep the data of the citizens. I saw it as a good idea to introduce the tool in the business area to
ease in the storage, organization, loading, and acquisition of business information for use by the
involved parties. This will enable the organizations to keep vast amounts of data mostly
involving stock (Koh & Tan, 2011) and transactions for use in the future.

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