You work in the information technology group of a chain of sporting goods stores. The company operates 40 locations in seven states. The 40 locations are organized into four regions (north, south, east, and west) with 10 stores each. Regional managers are responsible for inventory management, procurement of inventory, sales, and marketing for their particular region. The company has been processing all transactions electronically (with customers and suppliers), and it has captured all the data in a large data warehouse. Unfortunately, the regional managers are complaining that there is so much information in the data warehouse that extracting meaningful data has become difficult. You’ve just been placed on the team that will be designing a new data strategy for the company.

A) Setting up data marts would probably help with the accessibility of information. What type of data marts would you suggest setting up? Make sure you explain who will benefit from the data marts you suggest.

B) For the data marts you identified, list the data that should be stored in each data mart and explain how the regional managers could make use of that information to manage their group of stores.