Bangkok Post : Businesses consolidate to accumulate

DATA MANAGEMENT

The explosion of digital information is driving an increase in data marts - and costs - in organisations which make complex IT systems.

Digital information grows exponentially, making system architecture more complicated and incurring significant maintenance costs, said Teradata Thailand General Manager Jason Shipman .

The company's research has found that 59 percent of businesses maintain up to 30 data marts and some companies have as many as 100 or more. These cost between $1.5 million (51.1 million baht) to $2 million (68.2 million baht) annually to maintain.

Continuing to add new data marts can lead to inconsistency in an organisation's data, for example in records of numbers of customers, sales figures, marketing information, customer service details, and so on.

Normally, data mart will help to serve specific micro level information but it is not always useful for gaining leverage in enterprise-wide data for the purpose of analysing results and key decision-making.

"The most important factor in data mart consolidation is not cost-saving but the creation of a single database to bring a single view of information, helping executives to make speedy decisions and create new business capabilities," Shipman noted.

He accepted that when businesses begin the process of data mart consolidation, they incur costs to move to a centralised system, but said costs will be reduced in the longer term.

The company has an assessment service to evaluate returns on investment and intends to migrate to a centralised data warehouse. However, 95 percent of Teradata's consolidated projects are expected to see a cost benefit of equal or higher than initial costs.

There are several cases in various sectors that have shown the benefits of data mart consolidation. For example, after consolidation the Bank of America. enjoyed a 64 percent reduction in operating costs, from $11 million (375 million baht) to $4 million (136 million baht).

" In the Thai context, businesses which have between seven and 10 data marts should consider consolidation," said Shipman.

"For us, I think data mart consolidation is a sound strategy to help the business achieve our goal of doubling the customer base this year."