Profits, revenue and company reputation are the top three casualties of poor decision-making, according to 80 per cent of respondents in a survey of 158 top-tier executives at large U.S. corporations. The survey by BuzzBack online market research for Teradata, a division of NCR Corporation, found that more than half said that decisions they make are more complex this year than last, and 73 per cent reported that the number of daily decisions has increased. Available data has doubled or tripled in the past year according to 59 per cent, and 53 per cent say there is less time to make decisions.
Data has to be shared not just with those in an organization’s corporate ivory tower but also with the masses, according to Stephen Brobst, Teradata’s chief technology officer, speaking at the enterprise data warehousing and analytics firm’s annual Partners user conference in Seattle, Wash. in September. He stressed that the key to organizing data is giving “the right data to the right individual at the right time,” and not allowing the worker to become overwhelmed by data that isn’t pertinent to their work. He offered that accessibility of data should be extended past the enterprise itself and be made available to companies’ suppliers and partners.
Brobst explained that a major obstacle holding back many businesses from implementing a data warehouse is that they are stuck in their ways – they have been doing the same things for so long that it is difficult for them to make changes.
“If an enterprise does the same dumb things it has been doing for the past decade, but they do it faster, it’s still not good,” Brobst said, adding that companies that use information as a “strategic weapon” will be the companies that succeed.
According to Mark Lahr, president of the Teradata Partners steering committee and manager of IT data warehousing at St.Paul, Minn.-based 3M, Teradata solutions brought the diversified technology company together.
Lahr told conference attendees that as recently as 1997, 3M didn’t have an enterprise analytic process in place, which made it seem like 3M’s separate divisions and businesses were acting like individual companies – an undesirable situation.
He said 3M was looking to have its information consolidated into a single, integrated structure that would allow users to access and use information in ways that were best-suited to their individual needs. He explained that Teradata’s data warehousing solutions allowed 3M to do just that because it understands that “when it comes to data, one size doesn’t fit all.”
Among the many product announcements Teradata made at the event were:
– Manufacturing Logical Data Model 2.0 said to provide a blueprint for building an enterprise data warehouse that includes SCM, financial management and customer management.
– Demand Chain Management 3.1, designed to help leading retailers increase sales, decrease inventory and improve in-stock positions through accurate forecasting.
– Transportation Logical Data Model 1.0 to help trucking, rail, ocean shipping, air cargo, postal, package delivery and logistics companies optimize decision support systems.
– Enterprise Data Warehouse Roadmap, a new visual modeling tool to help companies maximize value of data assets by graphically depicting what additional applications, business questions and key performance indicators can benefit from leveraging a company’s data in many ways beyond the original purpose.
– Teradata Solutions Methodology 4.3, a project-management tool to reduce enterprise data warehouse implementation risks and bring projects in on time and on budget.
– enhancements to, Teradata Data Mining Warehouse solution and Teradata Business Analytic Templates.
– the expansion of its Oracle-to-Teradata migration program.
— with file from Lindsay Bruce
