European firms need to data warehouse

Less than a third of European companies in finance and banking, retail, and utilities have implemented a data warehouse, or plan to introduce one within the next two years.

Of those that have, about three-quarters plan to make further systems investments by the end of the year, and most expect to double the data stored to 400Gb as different uses are found for the system, according to a report by Dataquest.

The study, Data Warehousing in Europe - implementations today, plans for tomorrow, was based on interviews with 691 companies with more than 100 staff in the UK, France and Germany. About half of those questioned were IT managers, 20 per cent were chief information officers, and the remainder were executive officers in roles such as finance and operations.

Arthur Hochberg, author of the report, said: 'Only 30 per cent have a data warehouse or plan to have one in the next couple of years for several reasons.'

He attributed these findings to vendors not clarifying the return on investment benefits - partly because IT departments are focusing on the year 2000 and European Monetary Union, and partly since many US suppliers have not set up shop in all European countries.

But he warned: 'There is also a perception that data warehousing is old hat, but companies shouldn't let the buzzword of the year, Java, divert them from the benefits.'

He added that vendors needed to follow customer requirements to the end to ensure needs are met.