Autodesk to Standardize Global Decision-Support System on
Informatica's Data Warehousing Software
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Informatica Corporation, provider of one of the leading software platforms for powering enterprise analytic applications, has announced that Autodesk is using Informatica's PowerCenter data-integration software to consolidate its worldwide operational data and optimize it for enterprise-wide business analysis. Targeted to be in full production by Q3 1999, Autodesk's global data warehousing system is being designed to provide managers across the company with access to a comprehensive view of corporate data so they can analyze trends and patterns in order to make strategic business decisions.
Autodesk's global data warehouse will consolidate primarily sales and marketing data from every corner of the company, including its worldwide SAP implementations, as well as external data sources supplied by distribution and channel partners. By creating an enterprise-wide data repository, managers will be able, for example, to integrate data from field sales with data from channel sales to analyze customer buying trends by any number of parameters, from regional preferences to vertical-industry purchasing patterns.
"The primary goal of our global data warehousing effort is to obtain a better understanding of our customers and their buying behavior," said Tom Grimmett, data warehouse manager at Autodesk. "Our enterprise decision support solution, powered by Informatica, will provide us with valuable insight into the sort of customers we should target for certain products, how successful sales and marketing campaigns have been, and how we can best provide services and support to most broadly meet our customers' needs."
PowerCenter Allows Autodesk to "Source the Enterprise"
The biggest challenge to Autodesk's global data warehousing strategy is coping with the complexity of integrating data from a wide variety of transaction systems across the enterprise.
Informatica's PowerCenter addresses head-on the difficult task of consolidating complex data sources, and customizing that data for use in downstream data warehouses, data marts and analytic applications. PowerCenter's enterprise scalability and its flexible "plug and play" architecture are designed to deliver a significant return-on-investment by automating the maintenance and documentation tasks that typically increase the staff resources needed for a project of this size.
"Prior to PowerCenter, we relied on hundreds of hand-coded, SQL-based processes with little or no documentation," explains Grimmett. "With no way to trace dependencies, or manage and distribute metadata, it was a big mess. PowerCenter addresses that pain by serving as one standardized solution that we can use to easily consolidate our worldwide data."
"By working to harness the power of data to obtain business insight, Autodesk continues to demonstrate the sort of forward-thinking, leading-edge mentality that helped make it the frontrunner in its field," said Diaz Nesamoney, president of Informatica. "Autodesk's selection of PowerCenter as its company-wide platform for decision support is a strong indication of the product's effectiveness and proven track record to date."
Autodesk is a leading supplier of PC design software and digital content-creation tools. The company's 2D and 3D products and data management tools are used in many industries for architectural and mechanical design, film making, videography, and geographic information systems. The fourth largest PC software company in the world, Autodesk has four million customers in more than 150 countries.
About Informatica
Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, Informatica develops and markets enterprise software products and services that enable many of the world's largest companies to build and manage business intelligence and analytic applications across the enterprise. Informatica has more than 400 Global 2000 customers worldwide and maintains partnerships with Cambridge Technology Partners, EDS, Ernst & Young, Microsoft, PeopleSoft, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, SAP AG and Siemens Business Services. For more information, call 800-653-3871, or visit Informatica's Web site at http://www.informatica.com.