Controlling the data warehouse - a balanced scorecard approach

Data warehouse systems have become a basic technological infrastructure in management decision making. Nevertheless, the overall utility of data warehouses remains unmeasured in most practical cases. As a consequence of this, IT-managers do not possess appropriate means to evaluate warehouse benefits in order to decide about investments in warehousing technology. We develop a controlling instrument for data warehouse systems based on the balanced scorecard (BSC) approach. On the basis of the technological aspects of data warehouse systems, the BSC perspectives are developed and populated with relevant objectives and measures for data warehouse success. These perspectives are integrated into a consistent data warehouse scorecard. Finally, this instrument provides a holistic approach to drive the performance of data warehouse systems.