Data warehouses are an essential component of business intelligence in today’s increasingly digital world.
A data warehouse is very much as it sounds – a huge collection of data relating to all aspects of your business. This may include things like customer details, transaction details, shipping costs and marketing intelligence – in fact, literally any data relating to your business will be in there. Data warehouses are either on-premise, which means they are stored on a physical server, or cloud data warehouses, which is where all of the data is stored online. Hybrid data warehouses are also an option, combining both on-premise and cloud-based data warehouses.
Table of Contents
ToggleThis extensive collection of data serves an important purpose. Data can be processed and analysed to give businesses a great insight into any area of their choosing. So according to Google, for example, you will be able to answer questions such as what time of day do sales typically take place? Is there a geographical location where more people shop online?
Of course, this is an essential tool for businesses, because it allows them to track progress, see where they may be able to improve and what is working well. A data collection company such as Shepper can assist your business by collecting and collating data to better inform your business decisions going forwards.
The decisions that could be informed by data in the data warehouse really are limitless. It may inform everyday decisions such as how to order products on a webpage, or it might even inform large organisation-wide decisions such as staffing or where to locate a new premises.
Business intelligence tools work seamlessly with a data warehouse. While the data warehouse stores the data, business intelligence tools extract it and are able to run queries for insights and to find out trends.
Together they make a great team and allow business leaders to be fully informed before making decisions.