Solving Operational Business Intelligence with InfoSphere Warehouse Advanced Edition

156 Solving Operational Business Intelligence with InfoSphere Warehouse Advanced Edition

4.6 Introduction to InfoSphere Warehouse Packs

An important element of InfoSphere Warehouse Advanced Edition is the

inclusion of the InfoSphere Warehouse Insight Packs. These packs provide

customers with an immediate saving in both cost and time because they provide

the necessary foundation to build a data warehouse and business analytics

solution. These Insight Packs are adaptable and provide a solution aimed at

organizations across multiple industries.

Managers and CEOs are not interested in database structures, but rather in

questions relating to their business, such as “Which customers are most

profitable for us?” and “What is my market share?”. These might seem simple

questions, but they require complex business analytics to provide the required

answers.

For many small and medium-size companies that might not have the necessary

skilled staff, time, or budget, developing a complex solution from scratch is

challenging. At the same time, they cannot afford not to ask these questions or

not have the right tools available to provide the answers. These companies need

an affordable method to accelerate the development process and help with

implementing a successful solution. It is for this reason that IBM developed these

Insight packs.

Customers utilizing the Insight Packs benefit from more than 15 years of IBM

experience in developing data warehouse models, along with years of successful

client engagements across multiple industry sectors with more than 300 clients.

These packs are accelerator add-ons for InfoSphere Warehouse, complete with

a set of prebuilt, consolidated data structures, and supporting components in the

areas of:

򐂰 Customer Insight

򐂰 Market and Campaign Insight

򐂰 Supply Chain Insight

The core of these packs is a set of physical data models that can be applied to a

DB2 relational database. Additionally, they include logical, OLAP, and sample

cube assets along with Cognos reporting structures.

Three InfoSphere Warehouse Packs are currently available:

򐂰 IBM InfoSphere Warehouse Pack for Customer Insight

This pack addresses a range of business issues common to organizations

that are trying to better understand the profitability and profiles of their typical

customers. The pack includes sample Cognos reports in the areas of

Chapter 4. Data modeling: End to end 157

communications analysis, transaction analysis, periodic analysis, and

profitability analysis.

򐂰 IBM InfoSphere Warehouse Pack for Market and Campaign Insight

This pack is designed to help organizations understand the overall details of

their market and determine how to acquire new customers in a competitive

environment. The pack includes sample Cognos reports in the areas of

market analysis and campaign analysis.

򐂰 IBM InfoSphere Warehouse Pack for Supply Chain Insight

This pack is designed to help organizations ensure they have the correct

products or components in the right place at the right time, without negatively

impacting cash flow by overinvesting in inventory. For many organizations,

efficient supply chain management is fundamental to their success.

Figure 4-52 shows the InfoSphere Warehouse Insight Packs.

Figure 4-52 The three InfoSphere Warehouse Insight Packs

Customer

Insight

Market and

Campaign Insight

Supply Chain

Insight

InfoSphere Warehouse Model Packs

Pre-built warehouses for advanced business analytics

Arm your sales force with up to

date information on customers.

Arm your customer service team

with transaction history and

caller profiles.

Arm your marketing team with

new market trends and

competitive intelligence.

Arm your distribution channel

team with resource planning

and inventory forecasting.