"Internationally, new rules and regulations such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act are becoming key drivers for listed enterprises to improve data utilization," Mike Koehler, senior vice-president of Teradata, a US-based technology company, told China Business Weekly, on the sideline of the Teradata Universe Conference last week. "Chinese companies need to be well-aware of the trend as well."

Cliff Wu, president of Greater China Area with Teradata, suggested that awareness alone is not enough.

Companies, he said, must understand compliance with new regulations could be very time-consuming, as many reports have to be documented in real time.

New technology upgrades have been launched to help companies report timely information to ensure better reporting compliance.

According to Wu, preparations for the compliance of new rules such as Sarbanes-Oxley normally start four to five years in advance, thus China's listed companies need to start with new reports documenting software now.

The Chinese market for data warehouse application technology, according to Koehler, has undergone dramatic development and is now a major area of focus for the local information technology (IT) industry on account of its market value and huge growth potential.

The powerful function capability of business intelligence, a key application for data warehousing, makes it competitive in such areas as data mining, business analysis, cost reduction and decision support.

According to International Data Corporation (IDC), a renowned research firm, the value of the global business intelligence market will total US$11.8 billion by the end of 2005, a year-on-year increase of 27 per cent.

Teradata officials expected that the numbers of overall high-end data warehouses above one Terabyte in size are expected to double in China over the next two years.

While compliance with international standards is one challenge facing Chinese public companies over the next few years, another immediate threat is the growing presence of overseas competitors as China fulfills its commitments to the World Trade Organization to continue opening up its markets, according to experts.

Koehler said these public enterprises' needs for internal control and decision-making also increase rapidly for more accurate and transparent data.

"Don't forget the data -- great strategy, skills and technology will fail without a solid data foundation," said Gartner Research Vice-President of Business Applications Kristian Steenstrup.

"Avoid deploying stand-alone data for CRM (Customer Relation Management). CRM analytics require the broader perspective found in the data warehouse."

He suggested that enterprises view data quality as a strategic business issue, rather than an IT problem and leverage tools, people and skills across data warehouse and CRM data acquisition efforts.

Anticipating the huge demand for data warehousing technicians in the future, according to Koehler, Teradata teamed up with Renmin University of China last week, announcing that they will establish a joint data warehousing and business intelligence laboratory.

The goal of their co-operation is to foster growth in the number of skilled professionals as well as driving the development of Chinese data warehousing and business intelligence applications, he said.

"In recent years, more and more public companies have recognized the importance of data warehousing and business intelligence technology, which are the core technologies in decision-making, data mining and information management," said Renmin University of China's Vice-President Niu Weilin.

Koehler told China Business Weekly that he has seen clear signs Chinese firms are moving towards more transparent corporate governance.

The moves to data warehousing will provide enterprises with one uniform version of the truth, enabling companies to make better, faster decisions, he added.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the United States, which will take effect at the year's end, imposes strict standards on the boards of public companies listed in the United States.

The new rules, released in the aftermath of the Enron and WorldCom scandals in 2002, are widely considered to be a must-read for the chief executives of listed firms.

Studying the rules now will make it easier for Chinese companies listed abroad to comply with the rules in the future, experts said.

Even for Chinese firms that are not listed in the United States, a good understanding of Sarbanes-Oxley can help them better prepare for possible policy changes that could take US securities rules as a reference.

"Sarbanes-Oxley has clearly laid a foundation for other countries to follow when strengthening corporate governance," said KPMG China Risk Advisory Service Director Michael Lai.