Dickeson--The Analytical Power of OLAP

If some of you reading this column are printing sales or marketing people, give this some thought. Think about products, materials and customer base. Could online analysis lead to conclusions about core competency of your shop? Account preferences? Market segmentation?

If so, you'd be using OLAP for insights into enterprise effectiveness. I'm suggesting that we think "out of the marketing box" about OLAP—that we use this tool to improve printing process efficiency. There may well be more usefulness in printing process management for OLAP than in product marketing.