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ABSTRACT

Businesses today are finding it hard to manage the data that they gather on a day to day basic due to large amount of variables and complexness. The current technological environment has enabled organisations to capture data in a variety of situations, like customer spend pattern, mode of transactions, response to a particular promotion etc.. however the technology to process the data in to a valid information to help in decision-making has not transpired. Data warehousing and data mining has enabled organisation to process the large amount of data in to useful information within a reasonable time frame, which has helped businesses to make some valid decision based on historical data. The rational behind the data warehousing is that the gathered data can be accessed at any time and in a user-friendly format which would enable the business to make rational decisions. The tools and techniques that are used to achieve these results are termed as Data Mining Techniques. I have used Myer as an example in this discussion, and how data warehousing in an SAP R/3 ERP system would help Myer to benefit and find a competitive edge in the market. Myer is Australia's largest chain of department stores, retailing a broad range of merchandise. Myer has 65 store locations around Australia, and has 4 distribution centres to help in flow of goods. Myer one and Myer store and credit cards are services provided to customers. There are 3 million plus Myer one members and average around 3.5 million visitors to the stores.i

Introduction Myer as an organisation collects a lot of information on a day to day basics, however to transform the data to meaningful information and to target the specific customers. This would result in increase customer spending and customer satisfaction. By having only up to date and latest information data will not help Myer to achieve this; the interpretation of data in to valid information will be essential. Data mining would help management in making some fact based information. The Pi.1, flow of information will help us to understand the importance of data warehousing.

Data

Processing

Informat ion

Processing

Knowled ge

Transaction processing

Management Information

Data Mining Tools & Online analytical processing tools


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Pi.1: The transformation of Data into knowledge and associated tools.

Data Warehousing is a function in which all the collected data by the business is analysed and presented in a format, which is helpful in making some valid decision for the business. The purpose of the data warehousing is to convert raw data in to meaningful information like product life-cycle, buying behaviour, customer retention, supplier performance etc Data warehouse: A logically consolidated store of data drawn from one or more sources within the enterprise and/or outside the enterprise.iii The Data warehousing as a function are provided by various Business Intelligence providers (BI).

Benefits of Data Warehousing: i) Developing and Maintaining Strong Business and Technology Partnerships Myer as a company has around 800 suppliers world wideiv, managing a huge supplier base provides its challenges in relation to information sharing and mainting a strong business and technological partnership. However with a BI in place, it would enable Myer and its supplier base to transfer necessary information between each other to ii) Overcoming Unrealistic Expectations Myer being in retail market which is fast moving and every changing environment and market place. This environment creates issues around setting goals that are unrealistic and mostly unachievable. Data warehousing would help Myer management with useful and relevant historical data regarding the minimum time frame that is needed to execute the planed project. By having historical data, learning from the past would be enabling and ensure that realistic expectations are set and achieved.

iii) Treating Data As a Corporate Asset


Myer has different channels in place to collect various data regarding customers, suppliers, employees, and service providers. With the help of data warehousing, Myer would be able to transform these data in to a valuable asset to achieve company goals. Eg: With help of data warehousing, Myer would be able to collect the number of customers visiting each stores by day and analyse peak and off peak house. This would enable the store mangers to schedule sales people based on the store traffic.

According to Bill Inmonv Data warehouse can be defined in different types, they are Subject Oriented, Integrated, Time Variant and Non-volatile. i) Subject Oriented: Data warehouse would able to mange data based as a subject rather than as a application. By following this method, Myer management would be able to generate information based on real time experience rather than assumptions. E.g.: Ability to search the best selling product at a particular promotion in any given store. ii) Integrated: Data warehouse working across different data management system which enables data integration would provide well analysed and robust information for decision making. E.g.: Gathering data from various sources with in Myer to help produce the end of year results to the market. iii) Time Variant: Data warehouse uses real time information providing reports based on the latest information. E.g.: When reports are produced regarding sales forecast of a particular product, the sales information used in analysing are real time, ensuring we the forecast is as accurate

iv) Non-volatile: Data warehouse acts as a reader and analyser of the data that are
gathered rather than modifier of that data itself. This helps in maintaining the integrity of the data. E.g.: When reports are executed, it allows users to a read only report enabling the safety of data that are gathered from the source. Advantage of Data warehousing: i) ii) Centralised storage system, by having a one place to store all the information will help Myer in reducing duplication of data and storage. Understanding of reports, by standardising reports across all levels of Myer from senior management to operations, will help in understanding the information that are provide to all with in the organisation leading to making informed and quick decisions.

iii) Uploading of data, data warehousing will ensure that there are no requirments
for duplication in uploading data to different systems. Uploading is to a less no of systems. Disadvantage of Data warehousing:

i) ii)

Time constrain: Time involved in developing Data warehousing may vary based on the business requirements; hence this may place as a disadvantage. More types of users will lead to more complex summaries. This will require more applications to be build to customise the business requirements.

iii) High number of users with in the organisation needs to agree and spend more
time, and lead from the front in ensuring that the implementation is successful.

SAP BW: SAP Business Information Warehouse (SAP BW) is a end to end business intelligence systems solutions that provide Enterprising and Resource Planning tools. According to SAP, SAP BW provides data warehousing functionality, a business intelligence platform, and a suite of business intelligence tools that enable businesses to attain these goalsvi. The core concept behind SAP BW is to integrate the different areas like Data warehousing and SAP R/3 ERP systems an providing a wholesome solution to the business. Benefits of SAP BW: According to SAP, the core areas that are covered with in SAP BW are Data warehousing, Business Intelligence platform, Business Explorer, Development technologiesvii. SAP BW would provide the ideal platform to integrate the different systems with in an organisation. The other benefits over SAP R/3 ERP to SAP BW are

1) Performance: SAP R/3 would not be able perform at its best while processing
OLTP (Online Transaction Processing) and running regular queries on reporting, which would lead to heavy load on performance on the hardware, by implementing SAP BW this tasks are separated in to specialise functions where data warehousing would be performing the queries on reporting.

2) Data Analysis: SAP BW would be using a data warehouse which would integrate different systems with in an organisation leading to better analytical reporting.

3) Front-end reporting: SAP BW would provide a better front-end user friendly


reporting, offering more flexibility than SAP R/3 ERP. Successful implementation of SAP BW in other Business: According to Tilmann Werner from Landesbank Berlin AG Significant improvement was achieved with the BW Accelerator from Fujitsu in the form of faster end-user access, shorter business warehouse loading times and savings in the area of administrationviii. Landesbank has significantly improved the end-use access of data with in the organisation for internal and external clients, SAP BW offered operational convenience, improve enduser satisfaction and productivity. Landsebank has able to lower administration and development expense as a result of implementing SAP BW. Conclusion After analysing the current structure

i ii

iii

Myer prospectus ASX 2009-09-28 Date Base System Concepts by Silberschatz, Korth and Sudharshan

Data Warehousing And Business Intelligence For e-Commerce Simon, Alan R.Shaffer, Steven L. iv Myer prospectus ASX 2009-09-28 v Building the data warehouse, William H. Inmon - 2002
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SAP: http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw04/helpdata/en/b2/e50138fede083de10000009b38f8cf/content.ht m
vii

SAP: http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw04/helpdata/en/b2/e50138fede083de10000009b38f8cf/content.ht m
viii

Case Study Landesbank Berlin boosts performance with SAP BW

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