Overview
"Ralph's latest book ushers in the second wave of the Internet. . . . Bottom line, this book provides the insight to help companies combine Internet-based business intelligence with the bounty of customer data generated from the internet."-William Schmarzo, Director World Wide Solutions, Sales, and Marketing,IBM NUMA-Q.
Receiving over 100 million hits a day, the most popular commercial Websites have an excellent opportunity to collect valuable customer data that can help create better service and improve sales. Companies can use this information to determine buying habits, provide customers with recommendations on new products, and much more. Unfortunately, many companies fail to take full advantage of this deluge of information because they lack the necessary resources to effectively analyze it.
In this groundbreaking guide, data warehousing's bestselling author, Ralph Kimball, introduces readers to the Data Webhouse-the marriage of the data warehouse and the Web. If designed and deployed correctly, the Webhouse can become the linchpin of the modern, customer-focused company, providing competitive information essential to managers and strategic decision makers. In this book, Dr. Kimball explains the key elements of the Webhouse and provides detailed guidelines for designing, building, and managing the Webhouse. The results are a business better positioned to stay healthy and competitive.
In this book, you'll learn methods for:
* Tracking Website user actions
* Determining whether a customer is about to switch to a competitor
* Determining whether a particular Web ad is working
* Capturing data points about customer behavior
* Designing the Website to support Webhousing
* Building clickstream datamarts
* Designing the Webhouse user interface
* Managing and scaling the Webhouse
The companion Website at www.wiley.com/compbooks/kimball provides updates on Webhouse technologies and techniques, as well as links to related sites and resources.
Synopsis
Receiving over 100 million hits a day, the most popular commercial Websites have an excellent opportunity to tolled valuable customer data that can help create better service and improve sales. Companies can use this information to determine buying habits, provide customers with recommendations on new products, and much more. Unfortunately, many companies fail to take full advantage of this deluge of information because they lack the necessary resources to effectively analyze it.
In this groundbreaking guide, data warehousing's bestselling author, Ralph Kimball, introduces readers to the Data Webhouse-the marriage of the data warehouse and the Web. If designed and deployed correctly, the Webhouse can become the linchpin of the modern, customer-focused company, providing competitive information essential to managers and strategic decision makers. In this book, Dr. Kimball explains the key elements of the Webhouse and provides detailed guidelines for designing, building, and managing the Webhouse. The results are a business better positioned to star healthy and competitive.
In this book, you'll learn methods for:
- Lacking Website user actions
- Determining whether a customer is about to switch to a competitor
- Determining whether a particular Web ad is working
- Capturing data points about customer behavior
- Designing the Website to support Webhousing
- Building clickstream datamarts
- Designing the Webhouse user interface
- Managing and scaling the Webhouse
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
The Barnes & Noble ReviewAnyone who knows anything about data warehouses knows the name Ralph Kimball. Well, like everything else, data warehouses are migrating to the Web. Call them Data Webhouses or anything else, Ralph Kimball still has the final word on the subject.
Together with Richard Merz, director of engineering for the world's largest web hosting company, Kimball covers both halves of the Webhouse transformation. You'll learn how to "bring the Web to your data warehouse": capturing e-commerce customer behavior in unprecedented detail, tracking clickstreams, designing a web site to support tracking, building clickstream data marts, and feeding clickstream data into enterprise data warehouses. Kimball and Merz also present several complete "clickstream value chains", drawn from both B2B and business-to-consumer.
The other half of the Webhouse equation is using your intranet to publish data warehouse information—thereby making it accessible to everyone in your company who needs it for fast decision-making. Of course, it's not as easy as it sounds. Kimball and Merz detail the key challenges you face in web-enabling your data warehouse: user interfaces, performance and scalability, 24x7 global availability, security, and more. Each of these is then addressed in detail, with today's best solutions.
For sophisticated, customer-focused companies, the Data Webhouse can represent an extraordinary competitive asset—if you do the job right. With The Data Webhouse Toolkit, you have your roadmap.