“Until recently, data warehousing was reserved for very large and rich companies. They spent millions of dollars on developing their own systems that took them miles ahead of small and medium-sized companies. New data technology has put an end to this. Nowadays, every company can afford to enter a data warehouse without being ruined. This is what Seatrans has decided to do, and I am convinced that we in common will find benefits and areas for improvement on many levels in the company,”
says CEO Endre Markussen in Firstpoint BTC, the provider of software and systems for the new Seatrans Data Warehouse.
The numerous operations, systems and engines in the Seatrans companies create tremendous amounts of data. Data is information. Information is knowledge. However, it is impossible to get a hold on the bigger picture by studying one piece of knowledge at a time. You can use various IT tools to create tables and compare aggregated data, for example day by day, week by week and so on. The challenge is to combine data from various sources to provide a bigger picture and to enrich the information and relevance for the reader – or end user. This is where a data warehouse comes in.
By entering a data warehouse, you no longer need to copy and paste tables from sources and process it in Excel, for example. You identify in advance what information or data you need from the sources available, and you can save days of work in one single report. And by using new presentation software, (such as the ones you recognise in PowerPoint and Excel) the standard reports you request will have an attractive layout. Visualisation is an important part of the options in the cloud.
“New IT technology has made it possible to easily customise both the processing and presenting of complex information. The tools have become less expensive, and by using cloud computing everyone has access to highly sophisticated software everywhere. You can, for example, download the information you need on your smartphone,” Endre Markussen explains.
“The first standard reports are already installed and available, ready to be used, but we will progress week by week by making more relevant standard reports available to the Seatrans staff. Our goal is also to provide access for the Captains while at sea. Seatrans is in the forefront in this field, and I am sure, as our creative counterparts in Seatrans are, that this will provide decision-makers in Seatrans with business intelligence that provides improved competitive strengths. We have only seen the beginning of this, and I am very happy to say that we have been challenged by various parts of the IT team at Seatrans and their IT infrastructure from the very beginning for Firstpoint back in 2007. We have had a long journey together already, and data warehousing represents new areas to explore for both of us,” says Endre Markussen.