Business analysis glossary
Data Model
What it is
A data model describes the data an organisation needs: the things it keeps information about, their attributes and how they relate. Models can be conceptual, logical or physical, from business-friendly to database-specific. An analyst does not always design it, but needs to read it, so that questions like "does one customer have many addresses?" can be answered correctly.
Why it matters
Reports, integrations and screens all depend on data. A clear model prevents duplicated or contradictory data and helps analysts ask for the right fields. It also makes data quality visible: if a field has no clear home in the model, nobody will be sure who is responsible for keeping it correct.
Example
For Marlow Online Store, the data model shows that a Customer places many Orders, an Order contains many Order Lines, and each Order Line refers to one Product with its price at the time of purchase. With this picture, a report that adds up order lines is clearly different from one that counts orders, and the difference is explained to users.