Fig. 12.1.20 Throwing data marts away.The long-term effect of constantly creating new data marts is that after a while, the
organization is supporting many data marts that aren’t being used.
Because data marts contain KPIs, there is great propensity for change. That is because
KPIs are constantly changing. Every time the focus of a business changes, so do its KPIs.
One day, the business is interested in profitability. In this case, KPIs focus on revenue
and expenses. The next day, the business focuses on market share. The KPIs now relate
to new customers and customer retention. The next day, the focus changes to meeting
competition. The KPIs now change to looking at product acceptance and product
differentiation.
As long as the business changes (and business change is simply a fact of life), KPIs also
change. And as long as KPIs change, data marts change.
The generic architecture for the data architecture component of the operational
environment is depicted in Fig. 12.1.21.
Chapter 12.1: Operational Analytics