Data Warehousing Services for SMEs; Unlocking the Power of Data

The 21st century has been characterized by a massive expansion in the volume of data, owing to the increasing digitization in most industries and it has been accompanied by the growing popularity of outsourced data warehousing services.  The complex nature of the data analysis process requires a well-developed infrastructure of ETL pipelines and a versatile data warehouse that can integrate these different sources, boost query performance, and serve as a single source of truth for the enterprise. 

Turnkey data warehousing services promise all the benefits of big data and analytics for SMEs while saving costs and time on setting up an in-house team to develop robust data infrastructure. This is crucial for smaller-sized businesses as they aim to become more data-driven to maximize efficiency and boost productivity. 

SMEs can use a data warehouse to improve strategic decision-making in every function of the organization, from keeping track of historical sales trends to consolidating and analyzing supply chain data and optimizing their hiring processes. Thus, investing in turnkey data warehousing services might be the most rational decision for any SME that is seeking to expand its operations, due to its convenience and utility. 

This blog will examine how SMEs can derive value from implementing a data warehouse and explain what constitutes an effective big data strategy.   

Why Your SME Should Subscribe to Data Warehousing Services 

According to a report published by the World Trade Organization, SMEs account for about 67% of all employment in developed countries. Despite this, SMEs often lack the bandwidth and capability to leverage big data and set up a data warehousing architecture, hindering them from realizing the true potential of their data assets. Paradoxically, many SMEs fail to build an infrastructure that would support high volumes of data because of a lack of business use-cases. 

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In addition, many business leaders in SMEs feel that they lack the expertise and resources to consolidate huge volumes of data and generate actionable insights from it. Instead, they maintain an instinctive approach, relying on speculation based on past experiences and competitor research. However, with turnkey services becoming commonplace, the lack of skills or technical labor is no longer a hindrance to extracting value from data. Some of the most pertinent benefits of big data for small-to-medium businesses include: 

Cutting Costs 

While MNCs often employ complex procedures to minimize inefficiencies in their business functions, smaller enterprises usually rely on the management acumen of the staff. This sense of judgement, when combined with astute knowledge from high-quality data, can yield promising results for SMEs as they look to develop a more strategic approach. 

Big data can reveal inefficiencies in the business’ current strategies and provide insights into the areas where costs can be saved while boosting profits. For example, an SME can tap into vast streams of demographic data and estimate which geographic zones would be more conducive to success for their business. 

Increasing Revenues 

Big data repositories in data warehouses can be analyzed for price optimization and to increase sales. The compact lateral structure of SMEs gives them the added benefit of being able to implement data-based strategies quickly. However, a greater number of competitors makes the first-mover advantage critical to success; this can lead to a significant competitive advantage over other SMEs that have not worked on their data infrastructures. 

A small clothes retailer might realize the purchasing power of its consumers based on big data collected from social media and by seeing how much sales are affected when the prices are reduced. The company might then base its manufacturing decisions on choosing materials and vendors for stitching to maximize the profits. 

Better Reporting 

Investing in DW architecture can lead to better reporting and improved data visualization across various channels.  SMEs can gain insights from dynamic data dashboards and advanced analytics by connecting their DW architecture to a BI platform. Managers can view data as it changes in real-time and also access historical records from BI software for better and easier decision making. 

Figure 1: Managers often choose to outsource their data warehousing projects to save valuable time and effort of in-house IT teams (Image taken from https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/other/data-warehousing/)

Be One Step Ahead by Subscribing to a Data Warehousing Service 

A data warehouse offers SMEs the ability to leverage predictive analytics. This involves processing incoming data and maintaining a historical record to predict what will happen in the future. With predictive analysis, SMEs can guess when exactly they need to hire new resources, order new supplies for manufacturing, and how they can better manage the finances of the company by delving into customer preferences. 

For instance, a company might observe from their BI dashboard that their revenue is increasing and predict that the best business decision for them would be to expand their team and operations. HR managers can use this data to schedule the hiring of certain resources before they are urgently needed, to make the hiring process smoother and more convenient for all the parties involved. 

Your Role in Subscribing to a Data Warehousing Service

Identify Your Key Data Sources 

The first step in developing a big data strategy for your business is to identify the types of structured and unstructured sources that data is trapped in. Once this is done, a data model is set up to consolidate data and ensure that there are no redundancies and compatibility issues. 

With Astera’s turnkey data warehouse service, our solutions engineers design a versatile data model that denormalizes the relevant information from your databases and passes them on to a scalable and functional data warehouse. 

Define the Type of BI Reports Required 

The next step is to decide what the data warehouse will be used for and the type of analytics and insights that need to be extracted. Our team will discuss and advise you on matters such as the type of data models that are appropriate, what your data can be used for, and where you should store data. 

Figure 2: Defining the type of BI reports helps experts create dashboards that reflect the type of insights that you want to see from your data (Image from https://thebhwgroup.com/blog/ultimate-business-intelligence-reporting-cheat-sheet)

Depending on the exact use case, the nature of the data warehouse is decided, and it is connected to the appropriate BI tools to visualize custom-built dashboards and real time analytics. Thus, turnkey solutions save a lot of time and in-house resources that would otherwise be devoted to working on the architecture of the data warehouse. 

Develop A Schema Suited to Your Business Needs 

For an agile data warehouse, it is highly recommended to decide on a pre-defined schema and stick with it throughout the DW architecture. Some of the most used schemas in data warehousing include the star schema, the snowflake schema, and the 3NF schema. They are suited for different business needs and with turnkey data warehousing, our data engineers make sure that the right schema is implemented to your data warehouse. 

Leave Room for Iterations 

With modernization and continued developments in the field of data warehousing, it is important to make sure that your SME’s data warehouse is compatible with the latest tools and data trends. Turnkey data warehousing services ensure that your data warehouse is compatible with your BI tools and querying preferences, so business users can easily access the data they need. 

Building a data warehouse in smaller iterations also helps newer users get familiar with the concepts of a data warehouse and gives data engineers more control over different aspects of the DW design. 

Leverage Data in Your SME with Astera’s Turnkey Data Warehousing Service

Big data holds a lot of untapped potential for SMEs. Small and medium sized businesses can use information from their datasets to analyze shortcomings in their manufacturing and distribution processes and adopt the best practices of their competitors. 

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With Astera’s turnkey data warehousing service, SMEs can get access to a custom-made data warehouse without worrying about the time and effort that goes into the process. As an end-to-end service, Astera’s product experts and solution engineers will take care of all the aspects of building and implementing the data warehouse, allowing you to grow and compete with leading companies around the world. Learn more about Astera’s data warehouse turnkey service here.