262 Al-Shammari
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- Transforms the data into a form acceptable for the EDW.
- Cleans the data to remove errors, inconsistencies, and redundancies.
- Loads the data into the EDW.
In addition, there is an enterprise application integration (EAI) layer that was
decided to be there to address the problem of diverse customer data sources and
platforms. It integrates the front-office CRM provisioning system with the three back-
office billing systems, namely, BODS1, BODS2, and BODS3, which then feed into the
EDW. While all front-office ODS applications feed data into the EDW, only three out of
five major back-office ODS applications feed into the EDW. Main back-office application
systems are as follows:
- BODS1: Geographic information system (GIS) billing system (integrated with the
EDW) - BODS2: Mediated billing for fixed telephone lines (integrated with the EDW)
- BODS3: Back-office billing gateway for mobile telephone lines (integrated with
the EDW) - BODS4: Enterprise resource planning system (ERP)
- BODS5: Human resource management system (HRMS)
The third major part of the KCRM architecture is the analytical KCRM, which is
composed of data marts created from the EDW, followed by analytical applications
using BI system, and finally development of an integrated customer view. Data mart is
customized or summarized data derived from the data warehouse and tailored to
support the analytic requirements of a business unit/function.
EDW Project
The EDW is a subject-oriented, time-variant, non-volatile (does not change once
loaded into the EDW) collection of data in support of management decision processes
(Inmon, 1996). The EDW represents a “snapshot” or a single consistent state that
integrates heterogeneous information sources (databases), is physically separated from
operational systems, and is usually accessed by a limited number of users as it is not an
operational system. EDW holds aggregated, tiny, and historical data for management
separate from the databases used for online transaction processing (OLTP). The EDW
is a repository of data coming from operational legacy systems, namely, customer care,
billing system (including the three customer profiles: IT, GSM, and fixed line billing),
finance system, account receivables, and others. The EDW was thought to be a strategic
system and major enabler for GTCOM’s continued success in the fierce competitive
environment.
The EDW has become an important strategy in organizations to enable online
analytic processing. Its development is a consequence of the observation that opera-
tional-level OLTP and decision support applications (online analytic processing or
OLAP) cannot coexist efficiently in the same database environment, mostly due to their
very different transaction characteristics.
Data warehousing is a relatively new field (Gray & Watson, 1998) that is informa-
tional and decision-support-oriented rather than process oriented (Babcock, 1995). The
strategic use of information enabled by the EDW helps to solve or reduce many of the