Case Study: Ben and Jerrys

1. If I were to design Ben & Jerry’s data warehouse I would use several dimensions of information. The first dimension would consist of the company’s products; ice cream, frozen yogurt or merchandise. The marketing department has to know which products are selling, if Ben & Jerry’s didn’t know that their T-shirts are selling out as soon as they hit the stores, then they wouldn’t be able to take advantage of the opportunity to sell the shirts. The second dimension would consist of the different areas of sales; US, Canada, Mexico, or Europe. I am not sure if they sell their ice cream in Mexico, but with data collection they can find out if their ice cream would be a better seller in the hot climate, rather than pushing for greater distribution in Canada. The third dimension would consist of the “specifics”; where the sale was made, when the sale was made, and who purchased the product. This information can help in the design of the product to focus on the buyer; it can tailor flavors to seasons, and packaging to buyer who looks for the better-looking product. If Ben & Jerry’s could know when a season was coming to an end in a specific area, then they could forecast the need or the decline in need and speed up, or slow down distribution to those areas. The focus of the information is that it needs to be useful, and almost any information is useful.

2. Ben & Jerry’s would need a huge number of files. The f...