Business Engagement and the Enterprise Data Warehouse

Much effort has been placed by Information Service (IS) in building the University’s Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) capability, which is aimed at delivering the strategic data that enables evidence-based decision-making across the University. One key step in the construction of an EDW capability has been business engagement, whereby IS looks to establish the necessary framework required to  populate EDW with data from across the University’s different businesses, and therefore deliver enhanced business benefit through better strategic decision making.

In constructing the EDW, IS has identified three aspects of data warehousing that will ensure the benefits are realised: :

·         Governance: Creating guidance, policies, and standards to guarantee the optimisation of the EDW

·         Communication: Communicating the purpose and benefits of an EDW to different businesses

·         Migration: Designing a smooth migration strategy for the data in the present and future using available technology and processes

To achieve these goals, IS has created a corresponding strategy for each aspect.

The Governance Strategy is primarily concerned with creating policies that can ensure the usefulness of the EDW once it has been established. This includes ensuring the quality of data in the EDW and aligning business priorities with what is available in the EDW. Having such a governance strategy results in a specific framework by which the development of the data warehouse can progress in.

The Communication Strategy, on the other hand, is focused on communicating to stakeholders and securing their participation in utilising the EDW. It aims to convey the many benefits of using the EDW to various businesses across the university through seminars, emails, and individual visits. Ultimately, this would result in the attainment of a consistent pipeline of data for the EDW as a result of the active engagement of the businesses.

Finally, the Migration strategy focuses on the movement of data from the various silos across different university businesses to the eventual EDW. As previously mentioned, part of this is ensuring a consistent pipeline for data acquisition. Another aspect, is designing the procedure by which data acquisition will occur through the pipeline, guaranteeing that future acquisitions will occur as smoothly as possible.

Ultimately, the Business Engagement project is aimed at making sure the usage of the EDW is aligned with the values of the major stakeholders. Through a clear establishment of the project goals and deliverables, IS has provided an effective framework for the future, and which enables the university to derive maximum benefit through improved decision making.