266 Al-Shammari
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marketing, market research, and finance, and it capitalizes on shared knowledge and
expertise from different business units.
EDW Implementation Team
The EDW project actively involved senior management, IT managers, business
managers, and the vendor during the development process. Although knowledge users
are business people from various functions, an IT manager at the beginning championed
the project. Soon they understood that it had to be business driven and one of the general
managers was appointed as the sponsor. The technical mind-set of IT people may not
fit the business nature of the EDW project; EDW was part of a business strategy, not
just a suite of software products. The following roles were performed by the EDW
implementation team:
- Business representative: this role provides the leadership necessary for project
success, facilitates the decision-making process for current and emerging business
needs and requirements, as well as facilitating users’ training and project budget-
ing decisions. The role provides link between the business side and the IT side.
While he/she doesn’t need to understand the details of system installation and
configuration, business representative must be aware of CRM configuration and
maintenance requirements. The GM for the Residential Customer Business unit
handled this task. - Executive sponsor/owner: this person is a major business player who plays both
the role of sponsor and owner, provides the link between the project manager and
upper management, guides funding and financing decisions, as well as decisions
about when and where to deploy the CRM system. This person must understand
the details of the installation, configuration, and schedule. The EDW sponsor was
the manager for the Customer Marketing unit. - Project manager: the project manager directs the work, makes things happen, and
works with the vendor. This person must understand the details of the installation
and configuration, and the schedule. The EDW project manager played this role. - Project team leader: the role of this person is same as that of the business
representative but from the IT point of view. This person is responsible for
coordinating the IT side of the project with business needs and requirements. A
database administrator handled this task.
EDW Content
The EDW is a data-based rather than a process-based system. Therefore, it does
support data capturing and processing but not business processes. The data captured
by the EDW relate to the following entities:
- Customers: relate to residential or business customers (age groups, living areas,
etc.). - Products: represent the number of mobile or fixed telephone lines, Internet lines,
and so forth. - Traffic: related to the usage behavior of customers (in terms of volume, duration,
and time of calls). - Revenue: referred to the amount of money generated per category of customers,
products, age groups, or living areas.