Unlocking the potential inherent in all this data, structured and unstructured, internal and external, demands that companies set clear goals for how the data will be used"”whether for optimizing the supply chain, developing closer relationships with customers and partners, predicting and reacting quickly to market shifts, or identifying areas for operational improvements and better accuracy of reporting. And they must decide on how it is to be collected, analyzed, and acted on.

But setting such priorities is not enough. To succeed in this complex endeavor, companies must also define the right organizational structure for managing the data effort"”one that can effectively align the demands of the business with the technological requirements needed to support those demands. That's a tough challenge that requires unprecedented cooperation across traditional functional and business unit boundaries.

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Keywords: supply chain management, data mining & management, enterprise data management, data warehousing, enterprise analytics