What is a data warehouse?  In the simplest terms, it is a database that collates and brings together data from different sources into a central data storage.  And because you have all data from everywhere in just one place, you can create reports and analyze all the data you need quickly.

But what are the best uses of data warehouses?

1. Business intelligence.

As it is, you would really need a good data warehouse in order to come up with good business intelligence.  Your business intelligence would need to have and to analyze all the relevant data that is available to come up with accurate forecasts, reports and scenarios for your enterprise.  Without a good data warehouse, you would be relying on a very imperfect and incomplete information.  Leaving out just one source could mean very bad and useless business intelligence for you.

2. Get all the data you need and integrate all the data you have.

From mobile sources to social media mentions to the Internet of Things, having a data warehouse ensures that you are able to capture and store all of these data in real time and in one place.  And not only are you able to put these data in one place, but you would be able to analyze them as well.

3. You can improve marketing and sales campaigns with real time analytics of customer experience.

Customer experience analysis needs real-time data in order for you to get a complete look at your customers.  As such, you can use a data warehouse that stores customer information to know what their sentiments are, how to personalize your messages, automate your marketing and even provide good aftersales and customer service.

4. Know what’s going right with your business or what needs to be improved.

If you can keep track of your clients to customize your marketing and sales campaigns, you can certainly use a data warehouse to store every information and data that you have on your company to see what needs to be improved and what you are doing right.

5. Validate or debunk your assumptions.

You have always believed that the holiday season is your best time as far as sales are concerned.  You can use your data warehouse to look at sales numbers on all months in a number of years to see if this assumption is true, or whether there are certain dates outside of the holiday period where you are actually selling more.

6. Discovery.

You could also use your data warehouse to find out things that you may not know before.  For example, trying to find out who your best customers are.  You may already have an inkling that your target market are single women aged 20 to 25, but you might find that there is a sizable market out there composed of teenage girls.

7. Tactical information.

Data warehouses are a good source of tactical information.  Your sales agents can learn about Customer X’s buying behavior before contacting them with upselling opportunities.  You could also use it to come up with better recommendations.  Seeing how Customer X fits the profile of Customer Y, you can take a look at Customer Y’s buying history to see what Customer X could be interested in.

 

Four Cornerstone can help you with setting up and running your data warehouse with a range of Oracle database consulting services and solutions.

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Photo courtesy of Brookhaven National Laboratory.