Easy money, tough decisions. (includes related articles on the performance of data warehouses, data warehousing Web sites and on making warehouses work)(Special Supplement: Data Warehousing)

• Published in: Computerworld Vol. 30; no. 26; p. DW2
• Main Author: McWilliams, Brian
• Format: Magazine Article Trade Publication Article
• Language: English
• Published: Framingham Computerworld, Inc 24.06.1996; Foundry
• Subjects: Architecture; Capital expenditures; Cost control; Customers; Data warehouses; Data Warehousing Data Mining; Database management systems; DBMS software; Decision making; Economic justification; Installations; Management information systems; Management issue; Manycompanies; Planning; Profitability; Return on investment; Software; Strategic planning; System design; Systems analysis; Systems management; United States > US
• ISSN: 0010-4841

Many firms are rushing to implement costly and risky data warehousing projects to get information into the hands of users without taking the time to calculate the return on investment (ROI). Industry researchers note that most firms base projects solely on a hypothesis about where savings will be generated, and they also consider data warehouses to be strategic investments. Some market analysts strongly support the viability of data warehousing and believe it is much more than a fad. However, other analysts point to rapid application disasters that occur because firms rush to implement data warehouses. One common error is not paying enough attention to architecture. Warehouses must be created for the long-term with the ability to add subject areas and evolve.