API's data warehousing bill sliced by $400,000

Beverley Head
Tuesday, 06 April 2010 14:41

Business IT - Technology

Teradata's push into the smaller end of the data warehousing market, and its more aggressive pricing policy, has effectively sliced $400,000 from Australian Pharmaceutical Industries' IT budget over the next three years.

Brett Hart, manager of finance and business reporting for the pharmacy division which has pioneered the use of data warehousing and business intelligence for API, said that when the company first began its adventures in data warehousing two years ago it realised it would eventually have to upgrade its data warehouse facility and had budgeted accordingly. 

He explained though that in the intervening two years Teradata - once a supplier focused on the big end of town - had pushed into the lower end of the data warehousing market and become much more aggressive on pricing. This he believed would save API $400,000 over the next three years compared to its initial data warehouse budget forecast.

API currently runs a 1 terabyte data warehouse, which following the upgrade has the capacity to grow to 6.7 terabytes.

The pharmacy division, which supplies products to more than 4,000 pharmacies nationwide, has been the first API cab off the rank to use the data warehouse. Late last year the organisation won an international award for its 'integrated view of the business' which has been underpinned by the Teradata warehouse, analytical software from Informatica, and business intelligence software supplied by MicroStrategy.

Until the data warehouse based system was installed API relied on an ERP with some analytics overlaid for its information insights. This approach meant it would sometimes be 3 in the afternoon before management reports were available.

In addition the organisation had to cope with information being stored all over the enterprise.  'Every nook and cranny had Excel spreadsheets to make sense of it,' Hart has acknowledged.

Now pharmacy data is combined into one data warehouse and management reports are available at the start of the business day.