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Three Reasons You Don't Want a Data Warehouse

The data warehouse. It used to be the gold standard for business intelligence. Simply take the data from all of your sources, merge and normalize it, and put a suite of powerful analytics tools on top of it in order to drive your business forward. Five or ten years ago, this was a necessity for a true 360° view of a business. However today, a data warehouse is probably a waste of time and money for your business, for three very important reasons:

#1: THEY'RE INCREDIBLY EXPENSIVE

A data warehousing project for a medium-sized business can easily cost hundreds of thousands (if not into the millions) of dollars, and take more than a year to develop. A lot can change in that year, too.

#2. THEY’RE EFFECTIVELY STATIC

If you want to add a data source, or correct an error in an earlier data import, doing so can become a significant amount of effort. For marketers especially, it’s vital to have access to a wide array of tools in order to keep up with new media and channels.

#3. A DATA WAREHOUSE IS TYPICALLY QUITE COMPLEX

An effective data warehouse is built on a foundation of solid technology, a well-planned data architecture, and a robust suite of analytical tools. Which is to say: it requires a real expert to access and modify. Can you really afford the time to wait for a consultant to build a new report, or add a brand new field that you can query against?

What’s the alternative? Is there really a superior solution that will allow you to fully understand your business faster, cheaper, and all-around better? Well...that’s the next post, so stay tuned to find out.

Can’t wait? Want help with your business and marketing intelligence? Contact BlueModus today and use the promo code “datawarehouse” for a free one-hour consultation to help you resolve your data and business intelligence challenges.