The current challenges and status of risk management in enterprise data warehouse projects in South Africa

Enterprise data warehouses can add significant value to organisations through increased strategic advantage levels if executed properly yet development projects in this area remain very challenging and involve high levels of risk. The global economy is currently in turmoil. In order for organisations to survive the global recession, now more than ever, relevant information is required to make decisions. Technology in the form of business intelligence and enterprise data warehousing can assist organisations in making the tough decisions they need to make. Data warehousing projects make up more than 10% of the information technology budgets of most corporate organisations and these projects have an estimated failure rate of 50%. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the current state of risk management in data warehouse projects and to determine where the main risk areas in these projects are. Due to the exploratory nature of this study, a Delphi process was used. The results show that risk management is practiced on data warehousing projects although the process is often not formal. Schedule overruns remain the main problem and on time delivery is the main criteria for success. In terms of risk management, the financial impact of risks is the most important to consider during risk analysis, lack of stakeholder management is the main cause for risk, scope creep has the biggest impact on risk and risk management is very important during the feasibility, design and implementation phases.