A Case Study of Success Factors for Data Warehouse Implementation and Adoption in Sales Planning

We present the case of the successful implementation of a data warehouse for support of the sales plan-ning process in an Austrian company. We investigate the factors that contributed to the success of the project. The key findings of this case study are as follows. First, highly-qualified external consultants may compensate insufficient qualification of internal staff. Of particular importance in that case is communi-cation between internal staff and external consultants. Second, user training compensates a lack of (perceived) usability of the software. Resistance of initially overwhelmed users may be overcome through training sessions. Finally, rather than acquire functionality that is not required, companies should ensure customizability of the acquired software, which is often more important than a plethora of features.

Keywords: Business intelligence, critical success factor analysis