Business Data Warehouse

The retailing giant Wal-Mart owes its success to the efficient use of information technology in its operations. One of the noteworthy advances made by Wal-Mart is the development of the data warehouse which gives the company a strategic advantage over its competitors. In this chapter, the planning and implementation of the Wal-Mart data warehouse is described and its integration with the operational systems is discussed. The chapter also highlights some of the problems encountered in the developmental process of the data warehouse. The implications of the recent advances in technologies such as RFID, which is likely to play an important role in the Wal-Mart data warehouse in future, is also detailed in this chapter.