Author(s)

D. P. du Plessis & T. McDonald

Abstract

The data warehouse has played a very important role in the transformation of the state owned telecommunications company in South Africa. This transformation process concentrated firstly on targets set by government during the exclusivity period and secondly, on the preparation for competition. A new Double Wave Data Warehouse lifecycle model was developed and followed to fulfil the immediate need for information through the building of a DW and BI solution in the company. It consisted of two iterations for the development of a DW and BI solution. Wave one concentrated on the rapid implementation of a Business Critical Information Solution. In this regard management information on bad debts and debtors days were considered as Business Critical Information Solution needs. Wave 2 concentrated on modelling the ongoing requirement into a permanent dimensional model. Keywords: lifecycle model, data warehousing, telecommunications BI, business strategy, business intelligence strategy, developing countries. 1 Introduction South Africa as a developing country has, since 1994, gone through a process of privatisation of some of the state departments. The Department of Post and Telecommunications was one of those departments. In order to obtain exclusive rights, for a limited period, as the sole landline provider, government has set several targets for the new telecommunications company. The exclusivity period was to last for five years, until May 2002, but could be extended to six years, if the telecommunication operator met network rollout and service targets. The rollout targets included doubling its subscriber access lines

Keywords

lifecycle model, data warehousing, telecommunications BI, business strategy, business intelligence strategy, developing countries.