Microsoft SQL Server 2005: Turn data into sales
Business intelligence tools offer deep insight into customer patterns
Updated: November 8, 2005
In today's high-stakes marketplace, retailers need as much knowledge about customer buying patterns as possible. The deeper your insight into historical data, the better you can analyze, report on, and forecast future sales and profits. Microsoft SQL Server 2005—the next generation of Microsoft data management and analysis software—delivers a multitude of new and enhanced business intelligence features designed to give retail businesses that deeper insight—and with it, competitive advantage.
Whether you're upgrading, migrating, or adopting an enterprise database application for the first time, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 offers retail businesses:
| • | Heightened system performance, scalability, and reliability |
| • | A rich family of new business analytics and reporting tools |
| • | A means to significantly increase operational productivity and profitability |
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What Microsoft SQL Server does for retail data
The premier relational database management system on the market today, Microsoft SQL Server helps companies succeed by providing them with a robust, secure, fully integrated application for managing and mining their enterprise data.
Retailers have come to rely on Microsoft SQL Server for two primary functions, online transaction processing (OLTP) and business intelligence, says Rich Johnson, solutions architect for Microsoft Consulting Services. OLTP lies at the heart of any transactional database application, enabling retailers to retain and manage data on product inventory and sales. When these data warehousing capabilities are combined with business intelligence features, a company can track and interpret patterns in its historical data. The result is valuable information that enables the company to make more knowledgeable business decisions that can lead to reduced operational costs and increased revenue.
Using the extensive data warehousing (or storage) and business intelligence capabilities of Microsoft SQL Server, a company can closely examine "customer buying habits, sales, and philosophies by store and region," Johnson says. "Based on that, [a retail business] can better stack items in their stores to meet local, regional, and national sales trends."
How Microsoft SQL Server 2005 benefits business
More than three dozen beta customers already have taken advantage of the new reporting, analytical, and forecasting features offered in Microsoft SQL Server 2005, Johnson says, including bookselling giant Barnes & Noble.
The benefits users are seeing are both vast and immediate and include the following:
| • | Improved, faster application performance: "One of the biggest immediate out-of-the-box performance benefits is in the area of user queries," Johnson says. "They're typically completed 20 percent faster." In addition, range queries, which let you manage and manipulate data in bulk, can be 50 to 100 percent faster with Microsoft SQL Server 2005. |
| • | More streamlined, effective analysis and reporting processes: Equipped with an enhanced set of data collection and forecasting tools, many of which are new, retail businesses can better anticipate and react to sales and customer purchasing patterns. Doing so enables you to stock inventory accordingly from store to store, helping reduce the amount of unsold stock. |
| • | Savings in time, costs, and human resources: Faster performance and improved data management can significantly reduce the amount of time your information technology (IT) staff needs to spend developing and maintaining your databases. Also, users can reach customer, order, and inventory data more quickly, meaning they're able to keep their focus on their jobs and not on using the software. |
| • | Superior integration with third-party applications and tools: Another significant advantage in this release of SQL Server, Johnson says, is its exceptional ability to comprehensively integrate with databases and applications from other vendors, such as IBM and Teradata. This critical capability can help you extend the value of your existing applications, regardless of your underlying platform. |
What’s new in Microsoft SQL Server 2005
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 offers a number of improved data management capabilities and business intelligence tools. These components can get vital, timely information into the hands of employees throughout your business, helping to enable them to make better decisions faster. Here are a few highlights.
Simplified management of large databases
A noteworthy improvement in SQL Server 2005 is true table and index partitioning, which, as Johnson says, makes for simpler, swifter database management of very large databases, from hundreds of gigabytes to terabytes and beyond. What it means for users of large databases is that they can now increase their productivity by working with smaller, more manageable chunks of data.
"In SQL Server 2005, we're able to take five years of weekly sales tables, which is roughly 250 tables, and move that into a single partition table," he explains. "This makes [the data] much easier to manage because you're looking at one object instead of 250." The result? Much faster performance of range queries (up to 100 percent). In addition, Johnson says, code maintenance and development time is reduced because it's much easier to write reports against a single partition table.
New set of business intelligence tools
According to Johnson, three business intelligence tools debuting or updated in Microsoft SQL Server 2005 make data forecasting much easier.
| • | SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS): This new tool can enable you to easily integrate and analyze data across a wide array of operational systems, giving you a more holistic understanding of your business. The ability to mine and quickly interpret data from multiple sources across the enterprise can save retail businesses countless human resource hours. |
| • | Report Builder: Featuring a user-friendly interface with a look similar to Microsoft Office System programs, this new component of SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services makes it easy for employees to create, edit, and publish their own reports. |
| • | Analysis Services: Improved from Microsoft SQL Server 2000, this component is now a much more flexible and richer environment for data reporting, analysis, and mining, Johnson says. "You can now report on dozens if not hundreds of dimensions [of data tables] or attributes." |
Get additional details
Learn more about how this next-generation data management and analysis solution can help your business prosper. Also get technical tools and resources to help you make the move to this latest release of Microsoft SQL Server.
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