The information layer is where mission-critical business problems are solved. This is where data has enforced business rules, such as business algorithms and data rules, which are designed to keep the data structures consistent within either specific or multiple databases.
DATA MANAGEMENT
Data Management is the administrative process by which the required data is acquired, validated, stored, protected, and processed, and by which its accessibility, reliability, and timeliness is ensured to satisfy the needs of the data users.
DATA GOVERNANCE
Data Governance is a system of decision rights and accountabilities for information-related processes, executed according to agreed-upon models which describe who can take what actions with what information, and when, under what circumstances, using what methods
MASTER DATA MANAGEMENT
It is a technology-enabled discipline in which business and IT work together to ensure the uniformity, accuracy, stewardship, semantic consistency and accountability of the enterprise’s official, shared master data assets. Master data is the consistent and uniform set of identifiers and extended attributes that describes the core entities of the enterprise, such as customers, prospects, citizens, suppliers, sites, hierarchies, and chart of accounts
DATA WAREHOUSING
Data Warehouses
The key component to most Business Intelligence projects is a data warehouse. A Data Warehouse is a specialised database that’s designed to support business analytics and contains data from one or many different sources (ERP, CRM, HRIS, Other).
A data warehouse is really just a normal database. Typically, they live in the same relational database management systems—such as SQL Server or Oracle.
Data Warehouse Services
The data warehouse is the heart of an enterprise BI environment. It converts data from multiple business systems into a single repository of meaningful business information.
Data Warehouse Design
Montage consultants have designed numerous data warehouses for organizations of all sizes. Our experience means we deliver a design that can be expanded incrementally while being flexible and responsive to changing business requirements. The quality of data warehouse design is pivotal. Typically, the scale of enterprise data and the scope of its use pose unique design constraints and challenges that if not addressed at the design stage will result in a dysfunctional data warehouse and the consequent failure to deliver business benefits.
Data Warehouse Engineering
Montage specialises in data warehouse development and our consultants can demonstrate real world experience in the delivery of all components of a data warehouse. This will ensure that the data warehouse is built to the highest standard delivering a robust, scalable and maintainable solution that continues to deliver business benefits.
The building of a data warehouse could be likened to undertaking a journey in which you first have to build and then subsequently modify your own vehicle. Each data warehouse is unique because it is designed and built for a specific organization to address that organization’s information and analysis needs. Over time those needs change and the data warehouse must change to reflect the revised business requirements. This differs from traditional software engineering, the skills and approaches of which are not appropriate for a data warehouse.
Data Warehouse Support
The unique nature of a data warehouse requires a specialised set of support and maintenance skills. The use of inexperienced, unsuitable or poorly trained staff will result in inefficient and inappropriate modifications to the data warehouse. This leads to degradation in the performance, a loss of flexibility and reduced maintainability.
Montage is able to provide a team of specialists that understand the complexities inherent in a data warehouse environment. They have the proven skills and experience to augment an internal support team or deliver a complete data warehouse support solution. The provision of experienced support staff allows the business to focus on how best to derive benefits from the data warehouse.
Data Quality Audit
The Montage Interactive Data Quality audit is designed to delve into the quality of both the data and processes within an existing data warehouse. Our BI team is dedicated to quality and we offer our own internal quality processes to explore either in-house or external consultant data warehouses to expose areas where improvements can be made. A data quality audit combined with a business audit and followed with our real training service will identify and correct missteps in many established data warehouses.
Data Warehouse Business Audit
All projects need a direction. Business intelligence projects require a direction lead by the business. Using the Business Audit service allows a strategic alignment to occur between the focus of an organisation and the information and techniques best suited to the engineering delivery of a data warehouse. Identifying the risks to the business and determining how ready the business is to use a data warehouse is a vital component in the BI process. The business audit is the map to a successful BI implementation.
BUSINESS ANALYSIS
Business analysis is the discipline of identifying business needs and determining solutions to business problems. Solutions often include a systems development component, but may also consist of process improvement, organisational change or strategic planning and policy development.
Fundamental responsibilities include: liaison between the business and technology team. A Montage BA gathers data analytic specific business requirements; making sure that the data is there to support the requirements, ensure that the preliminary conceptual data models validate business scenarios, and work closely with testing teams to make sure that the requirements are met.
Gathering thorough business and data requirements assists in ensuring a successful BI project / Programme.
At Montage the business needs of the organisation are identified by interviewing the key stakeholders. Identifying these business needs helps to develop the design needs of the data warehouse.
The business analyst is the right hand and often assists the project manager throughout the project. Knowing the foundation of the project and utilizing their client facing skills provides the project manager confidence that in their absence, the business analyst can attend meetings and speak knowledgably on their behalf.