Greater visibility and insights with datamart development

What is A DATAMART?

Essentially, datamarts act as integration layers between your data repository and other business tools.  They can capture and process data from a range of touchpoints, clean and match with other sources, and feed into tools like your marketing automation platform, reporting tools, or to outside businesses like your website provider or in-store technology supplier.  They’re a way to maximise the value of these tools by providing fast, targeted access to the data they need to work effectively.

Datamart use cases

Datamarts are most commonly used when:

• Teams require consistent and reliable data to make informed decisions
• There’s too much noise in your current systems
• You want faster insights without building a full-scale warehouse
• You need specialised data for a platform – e.g. analytical variables to feed into a marketing automation system

They’re especially useful for marketing, finance, operations or any department that needs its own view.  Having an accessible datamart also makes it faster and easier to launch other analytics projects down the track, cutting down delivery times and getting you insights sooner.

Three types of datamart

There are multiple ways to build a datamart.  Every datamart we build is customised based on your business goals, the specific project or purpose and the way you work.

Independent datamarts

These are standalone systems that pull information directly from one or more sources. They’re faster to implement and can be tailored to a specific function or department.

Dependent datamart

A best-of-both-worlds approach for larger organisations. This type of datamart is an offshoot of a central data warehouse, providing department-specific views while staying aligned with enterprise-wide data governance requirements.

Hybrid datamarts

Hybrid datamarts combine elements of both. They’re flexible, scalable and often used as a transitional step toward more complex data environments.

Datamart development steps

At Datamine, we follow a structured approach to ensure your datamart fits your business requirements and is primed to deliver long-term value.

Design

The first step is working with you and your team to identify business needs, define key users, and scope out the types of data required. From there, we create a blueprint that balances technical capability with business impact.

Construction

Using agile, scalable tools, we build the architecture that will house your data and integrate it with existing systems and tools. In most cases, a datamart will sit in your own technology environment for ease of access and control.

Populating data

The next step involves populating your datamart with data from your chosen sources, which can include your data warehouse, marketing platform, website and third-party providers.

Data access and security

Users get the access they need – no more, no less – and robust security measures are implemented to protect sensitive business information.

Ongoing management

We don’t set and forget. Datamine provides continuous support, updates and performance optimisation, to keep your datamart working at its best.

The benefits of a datamart go beyond organisation and accessibility.

Datamarts can:

Deliver value and ROI almost immediately

Because they’re smaller in scope than full data warehouses, datamarts are faster to build, have less upfront investment, and can start adding value right away.  By supplying accurate, up-to-date data in the right format and connecting different tools, a datamart can also help you increase the ROI on your other platforms and systems.  For example, you could use a datamart to connect your POS software to your call centre, giving phone operators and salespeople the same complete view of each customer.  This Single Customer View (SCV), which offers a full, accessible picture of each customer, is another key datamart benefit.

They’re scalable and agile, and deliver long-term business value

Start small, grow smart.  Datamarts can evolve to support more teams, tools and data types as your business grows.

Can be used as a stepping stone to a data warehouse

The difference between a datamart and a data warehouse is that a datamart can lay the groundwork for a larger warehouse later, without sacrificing functionality now.

Add more datamarts and functions later

Flexibility and scalability are baked in, which means you can add new datamarts, more users and additional capabilities like user-friendly reporting and campaign management data solutions further down the line.