Data warehousing projects reap rewards

NEWS Many UK companies are discovering how the potential of their data warehousing projects can be fulfilled, according to a survey released today from MicroStrategy. The company surveyed 163 IT and business managers at the Data Warehousing Congress in London this summer, finding that 72 per cent expect a return on investment within a year of implementation. Steve Goodheart, data warehouse project manager at Littlewoods, said: "Our warehouse has had a marked effect already. The system as a whole has reduced the mark-down rate - price cuts caused by inefficiencies in inventory control - by three per cent since September, which translates into many millions." Data warehouses are proving to be central to marketing and ecommerce strategies. Goodheart said: "The system is used throughout company operations from merchandising, planning, finance and store management." The key to data warehouse project successes, according to the poll, is that business leaders are often heavily involved in the project. The company found that 82 per cent of respondents said board level involvement was extremely important in the development of a warehouse strategy. Goodheart said the Littlewoods warehouse project involved a migration from a number of disparate mainframe systems onto a central Unix platform. He admitted that there are still one or two teething problems with the system because of its complexity, but said these have been significantly outweighed by its advantages.