You will emerge with a good practical understanding of business and technical aspects of building data warehouses to store and access data in ways useful strategically. What further sets this book different is its focus on the information needs of retailers, including market and organizational problems that affect data collection and use. * Written by a team of four engineers who design and build a Wal-Mart Data Warehouse database, the database design team recognized internally in 1991 by Wal-Mart to award the company Innovational Technical Team. * Provides essential information for project managers, consultants, manager of data warehousing, and data architect. * Bringing in-depth look at technical issues, including architecture, construction approaches, tool selection, selection of database systems, and maintenance. * Address issues specific to retail business: vendors, inventory, sales analysis, geography, categories of articles, and more. * Explains how to determine business requirements at the beginning of the project and how to develop return on investment analysis after the warehouse has been brought online.