Over the last couple of decades, companies in virtually every industry have used data warehouses (DW) to collect and organize data that they analyze to gain information about their market, customers or their own operations. This provides business intelligence (BI) that allows them to understand and predict trends so they can make smarter decisions.
Because of the demands for things like specialized software, database tuning expertise, and the systems needed to provide good performance, data warehousing and BI have historically been limited to large organizations with the resources to meet the needs, and the scale of requirements to justify the investment. Meanwhile the underserved mid-market has had to make do with spreadsheets, manual processes and open source database management systems.
However, as the business environment is getting increasingly complex, data warehousing and BI capabilities are no longer a necessity for only large enterprises. Mid-market companies also need business analytics to differentiate themselves, detect market trends, and better understand and serve their customers.
In fact, surveys indicate that mid-market companies recognize the importance of analytics and are anxious to develop the capability. According to a June 2011 article in ITJungle, 83 percent of mid-market CIOs identified analytics as their top-priority investment area.
This is a significant trend because midsize businesses, together with small enterprises, are responsible for nearly 65 percent of the global GDP, represent more than 90 percent of all businesses and employ over 90 percent of the world's workforce. It’s important to the world economy that they embrace analytics to help them run more efficiently and manage their businesses effectively.
At Dell we believe that data warehousing, BI and analytics should be cost-effective and easy enough for all organizations to use to optimize their business. This is why Dell is bringing its price/performance value to data warehousing, BI and analytics, giving all organizations the power to do more with their data. Our starter level data warehouse appliance, Dell Quickstart Data Warehouse Appliance, goes to beta test today.
For more on today's news tune in live via our Dell LiveStream Broadcast at 11:30 CT or check out the full details here.