You know what you want for your organization: a successful business with a growing bottom line. You want to effortlessly handle supply-chain demands and manage budget constraints. You want to confidently comply with regulatory requirements. The question is, how do you bypass stumbling blocks on your way to reaching your goals?

It’s no secret that businesses face constant challenges; in fact, overcoming hurdles can oftentimes create growth in an enterprise. More than ever, it’s imperative for today’s industry leaders to have sound governance and a planned evolution of its enterprise data warehouse (EDW) that, through its cross-functional perspective, bolsters business opportunities and anticipates crises.

“Without proper planning and governance, you’ll never maximize the value of your enterprise’s investment in data warehouse technology, and the impact on your company’s financial performance, operations and decision making can be devastating,” says Lance Miller, director of Teradata services marketing.

“Given global commerce’s increasingly competitive nature, executives must be afforded the power to make better, faster decisions,” says Miller. “Across the board, we’re seeing many common, easily remedied problems that a better understanding of data warehousing’s role within the organization would rapidly solve.”

That’s why Teradata’s Professional Services group offers a suite of solutions custom tailored to ensure that the proper people, processes and technology are fully deployed and working to align analytical infrastructure with core goals. Let’s examine three service-driven themes: governance, a mature EDW and useful business tools.

Empowered by governance
Reaching your company’s full potential begins with data warehouse governance: a formal network of processes and systems established, defined and followed by the enterprise. Governance affects the entire enterprise by defining the company’s business and technology objectives, deciding what information should be shared and the levels of data accessibility. Picture it as the official chain of command from which strategies are set and accountability measured for the information needs of the enterprise.

Without such structures in place, negative consequences are obvious. Cross-departmental lines of communication can suffer, causing breakdowns in interoperability. Assigning priorities becomes difficult and can lead to in-house political issues. This creates a snowball effect whereby productivity slows and money is wastefully spent.

“Governance is like insurance,” explains Betty Kight, Teradata senior data warehousing consultant. “It’s hard to consider when your house is on fire. But if you don’t have it in place, an emergency can cause disruption. An organization without governance is one without guidance: Nobody knows who’s doing what.”

Governance also encompasses the exercise of authority and infrastructure to manage problems and maintain ongoing system upkeep, including the ability of institutions and executives to allocate resources and coordinate activity within the enterprise.

“Instituting governance could be as straightforward as simply building a basic communications structure,” says Kight. “However, what’s more painful: Calling a meeting to get top-level executives together and institute the plan, or watching 10 departments work on as many different things while going in an equal number of directions?”

Achieving maximum data warehouse output requires buying wholesale into this underlying vision, including creating decision-making teams with clearly defined roles and channels of communication. Naturally, the effort demands a shift in corporate culture and full commitment to the project.

Advantages of a capable, mature EDW
The information backbone of any organization, an EDW is one of the most important investments you can make. It provides a single, holistic view of the enterprise that aligns analytics with strategic objectives, giving business leaders the tools and information they need to make effective decisions. To grow that investment and reap its full potential requires steadfast care and a progressive outlook.

The maturity of your data warehouse determines how much data is captured, how rapidly data is made available to decision makers across the enterprise and how pervasive its use is. Conducting a formal assessment of your EDW allows you to measure critical data warehousing characteristics and determine the stage of maturity required to meet your needs and reach your goals.

“Too many organizations are myopic,” says Helen Fowler, director of business development for Teradata Professional Services. “They don’t have insight into their own [commercial] advantages. A mature EDW allows you to identify not only market barriers, but also gaps in the competitive landscape waiting to be filled.”

The EDW holds the information that can move your business upward, but it must be nurtured to reach its full potential or maturity level. An emphasis on viewing the EDW from an active, cross-functional perspective—its ideal operational state—is imperative.

From its research of multiple companies across several industries, Teradata Professional Services has defined the six evolution phases of every business: operate, understand, change, grow, compete and lead. The EDW’s maturity level is correlated directly to these phases.

Teradata’s patent-pending approach employs a six-stage, model-based continuum and draws upon more than a quarter-century’s worth of best-in-category experience. To assess an EDW’s maturity, a framework is created to rank specific categories or dimensions of a data warehouse, such as data quality, funding prioritization and user access. The framework, created for specific industries, can be adapted to your particular company. Each category is then ranked on a scorecard based on the current and desired development of the categories or dimension. The difference between current and desired development is the growth potential of an EDW. The larger the gap, the less the EDW has been fully utilized by the organization.

“Teradata takes an agnostic, technology-neutral approach to these assessments,” says Fowler. “We look not at platforms and tools, but rather how business and data governance come together to realign staff, data and IT resources with business objectives. It’s the clearest way to see how to get from point to point.”

enlarge The Teradata EDWR is a visual model of an enterprise’s linkage from data to decision, including the six key areas labeled above. The model brings a disciplined, methodical approach to attacking the information needs of the enterprise by offering a model or plan for the enterprise to follow. Constructed by building a linkage from the highest strategic levels of a company down to the basic business facts as captured in operational data, the model shows how a typical customer’s vision is captured in the upper left portion and decomposed into more granular business improvement opportunities (BIOs). The model then determines value through linkages from the BIOs’ analysis component to the data sources and color codes business questions and key performance indicators (KPIs) based on sourcing completeness.

Retooling your EDW
Roadmaps and logical data models (LDMs) can help evaluate how to fully optimize your EDW. Businesses use these tools to align their business strategy, initiatives, questions and metrics with the underlying data and its modeled representation. Both provide visual representation of the enterprise’s data in direct correlation to its business goals and objectives.

Designed as color-coded charts, roadmaps allow business and IT units to communicate more effectively with each other. The chart highlights interrelations between the two units, visually indicating which data points need addressing and how closely systems conform to best-practice standards. (See figure.)

“If you’re not using an EDW roadmap, you’re flying blind,” cautions Al Schuetz, director of Teradata EDW planning and implementation. “It’s akin to cramming a bunch of documents into a file cabinet without having any folders or labels to help categorize them. When it comes time to retrieve this information, how are you supposed to find it?”

Like roadmaps, LDMs graphically depict how business information is organized within an enterprise. Consider it a blueprint that guides you in planning every aspect of a mature, versatile data warehousing solution by illustrating the co-dependency between key performance indicators (KPIs) and business improvement opportunities (BIOs).

Together, roadmaps and LDMs present an informative, easily interpreted navigational plan. With these tools, leaders can identify the connection between the data warehouse and the company’s goals, thereby setting the groundwork for strategic implementation necessary to fulfill those objectives.

You’re not alone
A category leader for more than 25 years, Teradata employs more than 1,800 consultants worldwide dedicated to helping your EDW reach maximum maturity, cost efficiency and return on investment (ROI) in record time.

Proven tools such as EDW Governance Workshops, Data Warehouse Maturity Assessments and EDW Roadmaps align analytical infrastructure to businesses’ strategies with a minimum of time and expenditure.

Many organizations appreciate the need for an EDW that offers a holistic view of their data. Companies that take advantage of Teradata Professional Services realize greater ROI, another benefit of vigilantly maintaining and improving their EDW. “The EDW must evolve with the business,” says Miller. “You’ll never get where you’re going without first knowing where you are.” T

Tips for maintaining a mature EDW and a successful business > Develop governance structures; educate and train staff; communicate and build momentum while speedily moving ahead. > Institute standard functional processes; measure, monitor and generate feedback throughout. > Encourage business and IT collaboration; create a well-rounded steering committee; ensure continuing sponsorship. > Monitor change management; plan for the long term with value-driven endeavors. > Design, develop and deploy superior technology; build an enterprise-wide, information-based infrastructure; utilize LDMs and EDW roadmaps.

Scott Steinberg’s articles have appeared in Wired, Popular Science and Rolling Stone.

Teradata Magazine-December 2006