Data Warehouse Build Business Case
This is a practical guide to building a business case for a data warehouse build project — the justification that weighs the costs, benefits and risks of doing the project, adapted to the realities of building a central data warehouse for analytics.
What a Business Case is
A business case is the justification that weighs the costs, benefits and risks of doing the project. For the full concept and how it works in general, see Business Case. On a data warehouse build project it plays the same role, tuned to this kind of work.
Why it matters for a Data Warehouse Build project
Data Warehouse Build projects live or die on building a central data warehouse for analytics. A well-built business case gives the team a shared, explicit reference for exactly that — reducing ambiguity, aligning stakeholders, and making problems visible early enough to act. Skipping it, or doing it generically, is how data warehouse build projects drift into avoidable delay and cost.
What to include
- Problem or opportunity
- Options considered
- Costs and benefits
- Financial appraisal (ROI/NPV/IRR)
- Recommendation
Data Warehouse Build-specific considerations
Tailor the business case to the risks that most often derail data warehouse build projects:
- Source-system integration
- Data modelling decisions
- Governance and access control
Example
On a real data warehouse build project, the business case would be shaped by building a central data warehouse for analytics. In particular, it should explicitly account for the project’s biggest risks — source-system integration, data modelling decisions, governance and access control — rather than treating them as afterthoughts.