It is important to remember the day-to-day tasks and interactions in the Kwik-E-Mart when
we think about where Operaitonal Data Stores fit within our IT infrastructure. Not unlike
Apu’s store, Operational Data Store information is often transient or temporary. While this
information is critical for the many applications and functionality that is offered by IT
teams, this type of data may not be suitable for meeting objectives outside of day-to-day
business.
Suppose then, that Apu was a scrupulous and veracious record keeper. If Apu were to keep
detailed records of his store inventory, interactions with each customer and purchase
history, he would effectively be able to offer some of the advantages that we would expect
to enjoy with the presence of a Data Mart.
Apu’s encyclopedic records would be the foundation for historically analyzing his business in
ways that would not be possible when examined only from the perspective of a single shift.
When paired together, customer behaviour, inventory and purchase history could be utilized
for forecasting and trending projected revenues and producing insights about customer
behaviour, such as which products are most likely to be purchased together.
Structure is key to ensure Apu’s records may easily be understood and used by others. Like a
Data Mart, Apu’s records follow a particular standard, format or data model; customer
behaviour is always tracked by first and last name, product category invovled and the date
of the activity; the store stock is always recorded by SKU, product description, date and
number of items. This clearly defined structure allows for Data Marts (and Apu’s records) to
be integrated with other systems and processes such as analytical or modeling tools.
Whether or not Apu could find business intelligence specialists in Springfield is another
story, however.
While Apu might have Machiavellian rules to govern the strictness of the formatting of his
record keeping, sadly, Operational Data Stores do not often play by these rules in the real
world. Operational Data Stores are intimately tied to applications that are the lifeblood of
any organization. As such, they are subject to the constant daily push and pull of business
demands. Operational Data Stores, and their related applications, are constantly modified,
patched, upgraded or replaced; definitions, statuses, types, categories, business rules and
their very structure are constantly in flux.
Luckily, Apu is well aware that the types of products and services at the Kwik-E-Mart (his
Operational Applications) change all the time. Apu, like a good Data Mart modeler, designed
his record keeping regime to tolerate major changes to his business, such as the
replacement of the Squishie machine with a soft-serve ice cream dispenser or the
substitution of the VHS library with BlueRay rentals.
Apu’s records, like a Data Mart, are non volatile. They are written in ink and are never
updated or changed, except in exceptional circumstances where there was an error during
recording. This precludes that Apu’s records are “read only” and will look the same whether
they are examined today or two years from today.
In addition to the consistency and standardization of Apu’s records, the static nature of the
results ensures that the information may be interpreted by multiple third-parties as a single
version of the truth. For IT teams supporting multiple analytical systems or applications
that rely on historical data, non-volatility is critical for avoiding conflicts or ambiguous
results. For insights into a business to be accurately determined, a complete and static
historical record is required. What type of results would Apu expect to receive if he hired
two consulting firms to analyze his business and he provided them mismatched and only
partially overlapping information?
Apu’s records are also not “real time” as he only periodically has time to update his records
(when customers are not around or at closing time). This is one of the disadvantages of
Data Marts and Apu’s record keeping. In contrast, the day-to-day happenings in Apu’s store
or the status of an Operational Data Store is always visible, albeit constantly changing. For
this reason, the active involvement of Apu’s records or a Data Mart is often not a viable
solution for meeting business demands where time is of the essence. Operational Data
Stores have increased relevancy as sources for decisioning or analytics when action must be
taken based on what is happening right now.
In the Kwik-E-Mart, the distinction between the Data Mart and Operational Data Store is
quite clear, while the line is sometimes blurred within IT departments. Apu is either
observing something in the store (Operational Data Store) or he has written down past
activity in his record books (Data Mart). Within your organization’s IT Ivory Tower, there may
be many Operational Data Stores masquerading as Data Marts or offering services or
features that are designed to emulate one. A true Data Mart is part of an explicit initiative
to build and maintain one, which is bound by various policies and procedures related to
data governance and data quality. Although it is a topic best reserved for another blog
entry, Data Marts are usually sourced from larger Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) , which
are part of initiatives wider in scope and are concerned with data centralization across
multiple business areas.

A healthy and well defined Data Mart is a critical foundation in your organization for many
enterprise packaged software solutions, including the Unica suite, which Client Spectrum
specializes in. If your organization is missing a Data Mart or you feel that it is poorly
defined, it may not mean that you need to rule out a packaged software implementation
altogether. Client Spectrum’s consultants are experienced with helping to define iterative
or phase based approaches to introducing Data Mart capabilities required to support
packaged software, while demonstrating value at every stage.
joe.maraschiello@clientspectrum.com
www.clientspectrum.com

Since 2004, we have been successfully delivering Unica Affinium projects across various industries including: Financial Services, Retail, Travel & Leisure, Telecommunication and Loyalty Marketing.

What makes us unique is:

• All of our 17 Unica Affinium projects, with no exception, were delivered in scope and on budget.

• Delivering Affinium services is our primary focus. We extensively leverage the Unica Affinium Implementation Methodology TM when delivering our services and all of our consultants complete our certification program – the Client Spectrum EMM School TM.

• We have the capacity to manage both simple and extremely complex engagements, with multi-lingual resources that can assist globally.

• We are accommodating, pleasant to work with and flexible in order to deal in either a direct or subcontracting manner.

We are looking forward to exploring how we may assist you and your organization with your Unica Affinium related projects. Please feel free to reach us by email.

This year's theme was: Ignite! The Power of One. It reflects our belief in the importance of building one-to-one relationships with

customers and a commitment to enabling customer's ability to succeed at developing personalized communications by using Unica's

enterprise marketing management software solutions.

MIS 2007 is an exclusive event for Unica customers. The tracks and sessions are designed specifically for senior marketing and IT

executives involved in the selection and implementation of Affinium, as well as product and brand managers, creative or marketing

services managers, database managers and administrators, marketing and business analysts, marketing communications

managers, marketing project managers, web analytic managers, internet marketing managers, ecommerce managers and other

Affinium users. Marketers from every level of your organization will benefit from the presentations, industry gurus, and case studies offered.”

"The main goal behind this initiative is to extend the relationship
with our clients online by creating this new paltform that will allow
us to share and build a constant communication with our clients and
partners," said Mathieu Sabourin, president and co-founder of Client
Spectrum. "We wanted the new web site to be more dynamic to incite peoples to visit us on a regular basis and move away from the standard storefront paradigm."

Among the new features, this new website will provide:

• A membre area reseved for client spectrum customers and partners
• Unica and Affinium Suite elated news
• EMM and Marketing News
• Link to online ressources and partners

"This redesigned web site relies on a complete new web platform that allows us to provide these exciting new features," said Bernard Pelletier, VP of Service Delivery. "The infrastucture we deployed provides a lot flexibility to incorporate new features and more dynamic content in the future. We're very proud of the end result but there's still more to come!"

"The main goal behind this initiative is to extend the relationship
with our clients online by creating this new paltform that will allow
us to share and build a constant communication with our clients and
partners," said Mathieu Sabourin, president and co-founder of Client
Spectrum. "We wanted the new web site to be more dynamic to incite peoples to visit us on a regular basis and move away from the standard storefront paradigm."

Among the new features, this new website will provide:

• A membre area reseved for client spectrum customers and partners
• Unica and Affinium Suite elated news
• EMM and Marketing News
• Link to online ressources and partners

"This redesigned web site relies on a complete new web platform that allows us to provide these exciting new features," said Bernard Pelletier, VP of Service Delivery. "The infrastucture we deployed provides a lot flexibility to incorporate new features and more dynamic content in the future. We're very proud of the end result but there's still more to come!"