Business Dimensions

Business Dimensions

As we have seen, business dimensions form the underlying basis of the new methodology for requirements definition. Data must be stored to provide for the business dimensions. The business dimensions and their hierarchical levels form the basis for all further phases. So we want to take a closer look at business dimensions. We should be able to identify business dimensions and their hierarchical levels. We must be able to choose the proper and optimal set of dimensions related to the measurements. 

We begin by examining the business dimensions for an automobile manufacturer. Let us say that the goal is to analyze sales. We want to build a data warehouse that will allow the user to analyze automobile sales in a number of ways. The first obvious dimension is the product dimension. Again for the automaker, analysis of sales must include analysis by breaking tlic sales down by dealers. Dealer, therefore, is another important dimension for analysis. As an automaker, you would want to know how your sales break down along customer demographics. 

You would want to know who is buying your automobiles and in what quantities. Customer demographics would be another useful business dimension for analysis. How do the customers pay for the automobiles? What effect does financing for the purchases have on the sales'? These questions can be answered by including the method of payment as another dimension for analysis. What about time as a business dimension? Almost every query or analysis involves the time element. In summary, we have come up with the following dimensions for the subject of sales for an automaker: product, dealer, customer demographic, method of payment, and time.. 

Let us take one more example. In this case, we want become up with an information package for a hotel chain. The subject in this case is hotel occupancy. We want to analyze occupancy of the rooms in the various branches of the hotel chain. We want to analyze the occupancy by individual hotels and by room types. So hotel and room type are critical business dimensions for the analysis. As in the other case, we also need to include the time dimension. In the hotel occupancy information package the dimensions included are hotel, room type, and time.