Most of the organisations polled (68%) report that data volumes have increased substantially over the past three years, with a further 25% indicating more modest rises. Only 2% reckon that data volumes have stayed constant over that time period.
Half (54%) of the sample have already initiated data warehousing projects, with 10% currently evaluating their options and 22% considering such a development. One in five has started a programme within the past year, while a quarter (24%) have had a data warehousing programme for the past two years and the same proportion (24%) for between three and five years.
The main reason for implementing a data warehouse emerges as the desire to improve the flow of management information, cited by 61%. However, the accuracy and reliability of corporate information remains a crucial issue for many, with 28% admitting that data quality was ‘bad’ prior to implementing a data warehouse.
Just 10% describe their data quality as ‘good’ before implementation, and none believe it was ‘excellent’. In contrast, after implementing a data warehouse, the majority (45%) now report that data quality is ‘good’ and 6% say it is ‘excellent’.
Making improvements on this scale takes time, with 16% of companies spending up to 12 months cleaning up their data and 13% more than a year. There are clear benefits from this exercise, though, as 48% now report no difficulties in analysing the data obtained from their data warehouse.
