The Essential Guide to Data Warehousing

This is the only data warehousing book that speaks directly to business leaders and data warehousing newcomers - explaining the benefits, risks, technologies, and processes with remarkable clarity and insight. Leading consultant and industry analyst Lou Agosta shows how data warehousing can dramatically reduce business uncertainty by transforming a tidal wave of information into knowledge you can act on. Agosta presents the quantitative business case for (and against) data warehousing, and helps you evaluate every key data warehousing application in the context of your own enterprise. Learn how to use data warehousing to slash supply chain management costs, make cross-selling more effective, strengthen customer and brand relationships, promote product quality, and more. Discover how to align your business and technical goals for data warehousing; then review every stage of the data warehousing project lifecycle, from planning and design through deployment and optimization. Understand what can go wrong -- and how to keep it from happening to you! Coverage includes :

• Creating a unified representation of your customers and products
• Data quality: the key to a successful data warehousing
• The key basics of data warehouse technical design
• Best practices for data warehouse operations
  
• Web-based data warehousing, metadata, and other key innovations

Read by business and technical leaders from Paul A. Strassmann to Arno Penzias, The Essential Guide to Data Warehousing is for every business executive and IT professional seeking to understand the benefits, risks, and technologies of data warehousing - without the jargon and hype!