The Challenges and Benefits of Data Warehouse Modernization

PRESS RELEASE – WÜRZBURG, November 27th, 2019
The Business Application Research Center (BARC) publishes Modernizing the Data Warehouse: Challenges and Benefits, a study based on a worldwide survey examining companies’ approaches to get their data warehouse to the next level. In particular, it provides insights regarding technologies used, benefits achieved and lessons learned by companies that are in the process of modernizing their data warehouse.

Retrofitting the data warehouse: time-consuming development processes call for action

It is the central approach of IT to make cumbersome processes more efficient through automation. Therefore, it seems obvious that users should seek to streamline their time-consuming development processes for the data warehouse by means of data warehouse/ETL automation. In fact, these approaches provide benefits. Above all, these include broad data warehouse usage and the ability to handle a larger variety of data to support enhanced analytical requirements. Greater efficiency in data management processes, on the other hand, only ranks 8th among the benefits achieved.

Lack of agility and skills as well as data landscape complexity limit the ability to act

Inflexibility in on-premises environments is driving companies to the cloud. Yet on average only 29 percent of our participants are adopting cloud services for their data warehouse. Investments in infrastructure and technology, however, are of limited usefulness. Data landscapes tend to be too complex and not many organizations have established data governance frameworks with both business and IT participation. So not surprisingly, a lack of business and technical skills is seen as a central challenge (38 percent) in data warehouse modernization.

data warehouse modernization challenges

Figure 1: What are the biggest challenges your company faced in modernizing its data warehouse environment? Top five answers (n=380)

 

Leaders profit from their investments in a flexible data and process architecture and agile data services

Companies with greater data landscape maturity are more likely than others to use cloud services. They build leaner data architectures based on central data warehouses backed by analytical databases and implement fewer data marts. Microservices and API management play a greater role in their landscape. Their future prospects are more often focused on real-time analytics and streaming as well as new data sources and open data. They are therefore more likely to better support BI and advanced analytics requirements.

About ‘Modernizing the Data Warehouse: Challenges and Benefits’

‘Modernizing the Data Warehouse: Challenges and Benefits’ by Jacqueline Bloemen, Senior Analyst Data & Analytics at BARC, is a study based on a worldwide survey of 368 people with a professional interest in data management, conducted from January to May 2019. The study covers approaches to modernizing the data warehouse, technology use and current challenges. The full report is available free of charge thanks to sponsorship from Wherescape.

More information about ‘Modernizing the Data Warehouse: Challenges and Benefits’

Download the full study from the sponsor’s website:

About BARC

BARC (Business Application Research Center) is an enterprise software analyst and consulting firm with a focus on Analytics/Business Intelligence (BI), Data Management, Enterprise Content Management (ECM), Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). With experts in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, BARC supports clients in their software selection and strategy through specialist consulting, leading-edge research and a program of conferences and highly-focused seminars. For more information, visit:
www.barc-research.com

Contact

For all enquiries, please contact:

Regina Schmidt
Communications Manager
Tel: +49 (0) 931 880651-0
rschmidt@barc.de