The 7 advantages of a data warehouse for your business

Knowing and taking advantage of all the advantages of a data warehouse (DW) is a requirement for companies that want to scale their business operations and make their name known in today's data-driven market.

And these are just two of the countless reasons why you should invest in a DW.

Do you want to better understand the superpowers of this tool and what are the other advantages of adopting it in your business? Follow along!

What is a data warehouse?

Building a data warehouse is, first and foremost, a business project, not an IT one.

But after all, what is a data warehouse?

DW is the place where your data can be stored and integrated in a secure and well-structured way . With it, all teams can access any information about the company in one place .

It's like a big bank, but optimized and specifically designed for analytical queries of large volumes of data .

Therefore, unlike common transactional databases, its main objective is to store historical data , in a way that allows its analysis to obtain more accurate business insights and forecasting models .

Its construction, however, requires:

• specialized teams , with analytics engineers , data analysts , etc.
• modern methodologies, such as the modern data stack .
• efficient tools such as Redshift, DBT etc.

This central data repository , once properly structured, can then be used for analysis and reporting to gain insights. As? Combining it with a business intelligence platform. This helps companies identify trends and perform sophisticated analysis.

The 7 advantages of building a data warehouse for your business

To become a market leader, your company needs to use data strategically, taking advantage, for example, of all the benefits of a data warehouse .

However, choosing the right data warehouse is essential for gaining cutting-edge insights from your raw data.

In this sense, although each company has its own information structure to store, organize, consult and analyze data for decision-making purposes , this data exists in departments or business units where only a few people can access it.

And this causes some problems in day-to-day business:

• inconsistent reporting or data that doesn't match up across departments.
• it is not possible to have a macro view of the organization's data.
• failures, bottlenecks and errors are not recognized at the right time.
• Data quality and integrity are always at risk.
• analyzing data requires more time, more expenses and more efforts, among others.

That's why, to overcome these challenges , many organizations build a data warehouse . In addition to solving these previously mentioned problems, it also offers 7 advantages .

1. Data from multiple locations brought together and preserved in the same format in a single large database.
2. More efficient transaction processing by protecting customer-facing databases from large, time-consuming queries and analyses.
3. All interested parties have a centralized view of data, ensuring that data from different sources is consolidated.
4. Improves data quality and usability through consistent descriptions and classifications, reducing duplication and interpretation errors.
5. Complete data history, even if deleted from source transaction systems.
6. No matter how complex it is, the query performance is the same and does not hamper the effectiveness of the operating system.
7. Improving the quality of operational business applications, especially customer relationship management systems (CRMs).

How to build a data warehouse in your business?

Building a data warehouse is basically carried out in three steps:

• the extraction of data from platforms and systems.
• the transformation of data, that is, its cleaning and organization.
• storage in a single database.

This three-step process is called ETL (extract, transform and load), or ELT (extract, load, transform) , which has the last two steps reversed: first, the loading and then the transformation. The data warehouse runs in the cloud or on-premises and is made up of structured data from various information sources, such as operational systems, spreadsheets, CRMs, etc. in a centralized location.

Invest in a data warehouse

One thing is certain: a data warehouse can take your organization to another level.

Do you want to build a DW with all the data relevant to your business strategy?

Here at Indicium, we use the best and most advanced tools available on the market, in addition to having a team of the best professional experts in the field . Get in touch today and count on the help of our team.