Architecture of data warehouses has been relatively stable. But this may changes soon according to a recent article in twdi. Various disruptive technologies may be a contributing factor to this change. Here is a very standard EDW pattern commonly seen in enterprises.
Buzz around Big data is getting louder and louder these days. I found a succinct definition of Big Data from a research paper published from McKinsey Global Institute:
“Big data” refers to datasets whose size is beyond the ability of typical database software tools to capture, store, manage, and analyze.
Data sets are becoming bigger and bigger and the same time it is becoming cheaper to store data. I can relate to some of it. Quite a few years ago my desktop had only 540MB of disk space. This year, I bought a 1TB disk for my desktop. Interestingly, I am filling up my new disk quickly with all the video files I am downloading from camcorder and camera.
Business Intelligence is how we convert data to intelligence. I was looking at a few BI tools. Here are some details:
SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for OLAP
SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for Microsoft
SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence
SAP BusinessObjects Predictive Analysis
Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g (OBIEE)
SAS Enterprise Business Intelligence
· Delivers the robust power of SAS Analytics in a familiar Microsoft Office interface, promoting collaboration and self-service analytics reporting for business users.
· Lets you explore big data using in-memory capabilities to better understand all of your data, discover new patterns and publish reports to the Web and iPad®.
· Offers dynamic and interactive business visualization that lets business users visually explore ideas and information.
There is no single, widely accepted definition of SWFs. But sovereign wealth funds (SWF) may be classified as cross border investment vehicles that are managed directly or indirectly by a government entity. Functionally they appear very similar to other cross border investment vehicle such as pension funds, buy-out funds, and mutual funds. But what differentiates them is their close tie to government. These type of funds could be any of traditional foreign exchange reserves and extending to stabilization funds, nonrenewable resource funds, sovereign wealth funds, government-owned or controlled entities such as pension funds, investment holding companies, and miscellaneous international assets.
SWFs also have very closely related cousins: Public Pension Reserve Funds (PPRFs) and Social Security Reserve Funds (SSRFs). Both of these investment funds are created by sovereign governments but they seem to have a clear objective to fund public pension system in future. It is also possible to have a PPRF managed by a non government management. Some pension funds such as funds Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) are very vocal against branding them as SWFs [11]. Besides
Today, the asset managed by the SWF is in the order of $2 trillion. But Merrill Lynch Global Research predicts that number to quadruple to $7.9 trillion by 2011 [10]. The paper contends that most of that research will go towards risky assets and by 2011, SWFs will control 16% of that segment. The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority front runner with $750 billion capitalization, followed by
It has been documented by various scholars that the SWFs invest mainly in listed and unlisted equity, real estate, and private equity funds. But the lion’s share of their investments is targeted towards cross-border acquisitions of sizeable but non-controlling stakes in operating companies and commercial properties. Many of those transactions actually involve privately-negotiated purchases of ownership stakes in underperforming firms. It has been documented by Kotter and Lel that the market reacts positively to SWF investment announcements, mainly because SWFs invest in firms facing financial difficulties and the information generation of stock selection by the funds. It is in this aspect that they are like other investors who are looking for value.
The SWFs has been around for a while though the phrase sovereign wealth fund was coined as recently as in 2005 by Rozanov [7]. The history of SWFs began in 1953, when
of oil exporting countries. But with the rise of oil price in the recent years, these funds became vehicle for wealth accumulation rather than just the vehicle for stabilization.
Before 2005, these funds were investing more conservatively and mostly closer to home and in familiar arena, in emerging economies [8]. But in recent years volume of transaction as well as the nature of investment has changed. In 1990, sovereign funds probably held, at most, $500 billion. The current total is an estimated $2–3 trillion and, based on the likely trajectory of current accounts, could reach $10 trillion by 2012. But SWFs have also started investing more aggressively even in some iconic private companies, which are seen as more strategic assets in their home countries. This has brought SWFs under increasing scrutiny.
But this phenomenon also exposes two tensions in international economics and financial relations. The first is that the center of gravity of world finance has gravitated towards east. Traditionally North American and European countries were responsible for shaping practices and norms of world finances. But in the changed world order, the countries with SWFs have much bigger say in world arena then that did even a decade ago.
Second, the capitalist economies are more comfortable with private wealth in private hands. But in the new world, the some foreign governments seem to control the private wealth. This probably is the reason why actions by SWFs raise such a hue and cry but the similar action by hedge funds remain unnoticed.
References
1. Abu Dhabi Investment Authority http://www.adia.ae/
2. http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/jun2008/gb2008065_742165.htm
3. Kuwait Investment Authoridy http://www.kia.gov.kw/En/Pages/default.aspx
4. http://search.forbes.com/search/find?tab=searchtabgeneraldark&MT=swf
5. http://www.morganstanley.com/views/gef/archive/2007/20071026-Fri.html
6 The so-called "Sovereign Wealth Funds": regulatory issues, financial stability and prudential supervision
7. Rozanov, Andrew, 2005, Who Holds the Wealth of Nations, Central Banking Journal, Volume XV, Number 4.
8. SOVEREIGN WEALTH FUND INVESTMENT PATTERNS AND PERFORMANCE
9. INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND
10. Merrill Lynch Economists Expect Sovereign Wealth Fund Assets to Quadruple by 2011 http://www.ml.com/?id=7695_7696_8149_74412_82725_83576
11. Why the CPP is not an SWF. By: Bisch, Don, Smith, Brooke, Benefits Canada, 07037732, Jan2008, Vol. 32, Issue 1
12.Vive La SWF! Investment Dealers' Digest; 7/28/2008, Vol. 74 Issue 30, p6-27, 2p
13. Limits to SWF activity? Country Monitor; 5/19/2008, Vol. 16 Issue 19, p2-2, 1/3p
14. Title: I ♥ SWF. By: Pettifer, Nicholas, International Financial Law Review, 02626969, Jul2008, Vol. 27, Issue 7
15. China SWF head cools hopes of more Wall Street bailouts. By: Ahmad, Taimur, Euroweek, 09527036, 2/1/2008, Issue 1039
16. Exec Desperately Seeks SWF. By: Gross, Daniel, Newsweek, 00289604, 12/31/2007, Vol. 151, Issue 1
17. SOVEREIGN WEALTH FUNDS AND EMERGING IMPERLM.ISM PIERRE DOCKES *
18. Sovereign Wealth Funds: The Need for Greater Transparency and Accountability Edwin M. Truman
19 Order Code RL34337 CRS Report for Congress China’s Sovereign Wealth Fund
20http://www.metrocorpcounsel.com/current.phpartType=view&artMonth=March&artYear=2008&EntryNo=8004
21 The investment allocation of sovereign wealth funds Vidhi Chhaochharia
22 SOVEREIGN WEALTH FUND INVESTMENT PATTERNS AND PERFORMANCE Bernardo Bortolotti
23 Sovereign Wealth and Pension Fund Issues, A. Blundell-Wignall*, Yu-Wei Hu, Juan Yermo
24 EUROPEAN ECONOMY, Economic Papers 378, April 2009
