Warehouse WorriesWarehouse Worries

Data warehouses are still high-risk projects. Twenty percent of the companies surveyed by the Cutter Consortium, an IT consulting and market-analysis firm, say their data warehouses contribute no value, and only 15% call them a complete success.

The Cutter findings indicate that assembling a data warehouse remains risky. "They're still tricky to pull off," says Curt Hall, a Cutter senior consultant who oversaw the survey of 142 companies conducted last year. Technology is part of the problem: Only 27% of survey respondents have confidence in data-warehouse technology, while 58% are cautious, Hall says. Twenty-three percent use packaged data-warehouse software.

But poor processes also cause hang-ups. Only a quarter of respondents had a well-developed business-intelligence plan when they began their data-warehouse projects, Hall says, and many do a poor job of understanding the needs of those who will use the system. A surprisingly low 18% conduct return-on-investment studies once data warehouses are complete.

Still, project success rates have improved in recent years, thanks to maturing implementation methodologies and packaged data-warehouse technology. Last week, for example, NCR Corp.'s Teradata division shipped a new release of its data-warehouse software with tools to make it easier to build and manage large-scale data warehouses.

Forty-nine percent of the surveyed companies have at least one data warehouse in use, and 70% are building one. Jenny Craig International will go live next month with a data warehouse to store 3 million client records collected from its weight-loss centers. The company is confident the project will succeed because of the effort devoted to researching software and interviewing the system's users about their needs. Says IT manager Sophia Ruiz: "We did as much as we could up front."