The marketing team is primarily interested in identifying potential customers, learning what products or services they want and determining how your organization can fill all or part of that need. In order to perform their tasks most effectively, they need to have sales, production and customer support data.

The marketing team will be able to provide you with information on the following topics: client segmentation, test marketing requirements, marketing program effectiveness, customer relationship management and value chain management.

The sales staff is responsible for actually turning a marketing plan into financial transactions. They need to judge the effectiveness of sales strategies and tactics on a near real- time basis in order to adjust to market conditions.

Your sales professionals will identify the information they need in order to support both sales and production reporting. They will need this information on a periodic basis (sales for a specific date, week or month) as well as on a period to date basis (production so far this year or month). They will also need reports detailing projected production, inventory levels and sales in queue.

The clerical staff is primarily responsible for all data entry operations. They are usually hourly employees who do not have a highly developed technical skill set. They often overlooked in determining the design requirements for a business intelligence data store. However, they can be a font of knowledge regarding productivity reporting and data quality issues.

When interviewing these team members, focus on the data issues that effect their productivity. They will be able to help you identify the elements which are essential to developing a comprehensive data quality program as well as staff productivity reporting.

Your production staff is most intimately involved in developing, producing and delivering your organizations? products and services. The information that most directly affects production includes: pending orders, inventory (current and projected), changes in production requirements (especially special marketing) and personal productivity.

Production is another group that is frequently underutilized in determining data warehouse requirements. They can provide vital information on the data elements such as inventory control and order processing reporting systems. They will also be your best resources for validating that the productivity requirements you have identified are in fact those that have the highest value for the organization.

Depending upon the structure of your organization and the business you are in, you may have several other categories of knowledge workers you will need to interview. Some examples include: legal, political action teams, environmental impact specialists, medical practitioners and product design professionals. In each case, take the time to get to know the job as well as the person doing it, so you can understand the context in which the required information is used.

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