It's not easy to build a business case for a data-warehouse buildout. A data-warehouse project like MasterCard's starts as more of a strategic infrastructure plan. "You start out with a base strategic decision, and your applications grow off of that," says Sam Alkhalaf, senior vice president of technology and strategic architecture for MasterCard.
So when MasterCard conceived of its data warehouse in 1996, the IT guys didn't present a giant business case to upper management. The project went through without a hitch because it was considered a strategic move to give MasterCard a competitive edge. "It was more that this is what we believe is a huge opportunity to keep our strong technology and leadership position," Alkhalaf recalls.
Alkhalaf, who won't reveal how much MasterCard has invested in the project, says it wouldn't be so easy to sell a data warehouse to upper
management in today's climate of shrinking IT budgets. "To crank up a data warehouse today would be hard," Alkhalaf says, because most organizations are trying to cut costs rather than launch new initiatives.
With MasterCard's data warehouse well established, the company can begin to measure a return on investment on each application that runs with the warehouse, Alkhalaf says, though he won't say exactly how MasterCard's data warehouse is doing with its ROI.
