Potential Impacts of Data Warehousing

In 1776 Adam Smith published his classic book The Wealth of Nations which introduced a new way of thinking that would eventually become economics. In this book, he introduced, among many other things, the idea of the specialization of labor. Specialization of labor allows one to focus on one task and perfect it. 

In 1912 Frederick Taylor published a landmark book entitled The Principles of Scientific Management. In it he laid out the principles that ultimately transformed craftsmanship into manufacturing. Over the course of the 20th century, manufacturing became more refined. Taylor added to Smith's idea of specialization of labor the ideas of idealizing task structures and measuring outcomes.  It ultimately led to a revolution in manufacturing.

This transformation in manufacturing lead to most of the products that we take for granted today. For example, if we were still in the craftsmen days most products including cars, computers, dvd players, wireless internet connections, blenders, electric can openers, etc. etc. would be way too expensive for the average consumer if they could be made at all.

That revolution never can to white collar work. There is very little specialization white collar work. I should mention for the sake of clarity that white collar work is different from professional work such as law or medicine where specialization is more common. White collar work is what happens in the offices that make up private corporations and government agencies. Nor only do people who do white collar work rarely specialize, the pressures are often in the opposite direction. You must be flexible, a team player, or one who can pitch in and do what is needed.

Most people who do white collar work are unclear about what they really do. If you ask a white collar worker what they do they will probably mention the company or agency that they work for or attempt to explain what they do by stating their title.

Enter data warehousing and the world begins to change. To put this into perspective, consider the impact of the relational data model over the past few decades. Relational databases are inherently categorical and their implementation has led us to think of the world in terms of categories. Data warehousing, on the other hand, Is process oriented; measurable processes to be specific. We model business processes in a data warehouse with the intent of improving them. We routinely think of what categories we fall into - employee, customer, voter, etc. Soon we will think of our work as consisting of measurable processes. This, in effect applies Taylor's ideas to white collar work.

If this catches on it will transform the way business operates. Everybody will know exactly what to do in order to be productive. And, if this all works out, people will actually be paid for being productive. Too often in today's world people get paid for showing up or gaming the system in various ways. There are many implications of this which I will save for another day so I can get to the point which I am trying to get to.

An epiphenomenon is that people will be able to work remotely as productivity will be the only factor. So, where you show up at the office or not will no longer matter as long as the work gets done. And since you only get paid for the work done nobody will really care how or where you do it.

I said 'if' earlier because there are competing views of the data warehouse. The competing view, and the more traditional view, is that the data warehouse is merely a large historical store of data. Which way will things go? It is hard to tell. But, in this question is a teaching point about predicting the future. The future is anything but determined. But, we can establish contingencies and say if A occurs then here are the likely consequences. If B occurs something else will likely happen.