In the past decades, the business world has watched Information Technology (IT) take on an increasingly central role in practically every organization. This process has been slow at first, but with stunning speed in recent years. Nearly all organizations, across industries and around the world, now rely on IT for the operation of fundamental business processes, fast communication with their business partners across the globe as well as data warehousing. But among the most critical issues that each company is facing today is the complex issue of IT decision-making process. In today's world, corporations cannot just look at implementing the latest technology and have the guarantee that that will lead them to success. There are many political factors that play a major role in the decision making process. This issue is very complex and requires a detailed analysis if it is possible or even desirable to separate technical issues involved in creating and managing data warehousing from the political issues. This paper will analyze what advantages or disadvantages it will have to separate political from technical decision making processes and show that it is not possible to separate these two. There are a lot of very important factors that influence corporations in their IT decision-making process. These factors are of political nature, which include decisions based on corporate partnerships, preferences, personal interests, the socio-technical matter, which includes the interaction between humans and technology. But also the technical portion of the decision making process where decisions are being based upon what technology will bring the best value and solution, and that in most cases is based on finances. The combination between politics and technology decision making is a very important factor to consider because as past studies have shown, it is not just the technology that is used that will bring the success of a project but the people or the human interaction that decides which technology will be best and will succeed. A well-balanced combination between all political factors as well as the socio-technical interaction and the technical issues will result in a successful IT decision-making process that corporations are facing every single day. But how do they cope with it and what is the proper approach to tackle this almost impossible task of making the correct decision that will bring the success that is expected? (Oberlin, 1994). It is obvious that corporations are trying to reduce their costs of IT by not only outsourcing their technology and IT work to cheaper countries, but also implementing new technologies which in the long run will result in less costs but more efficient work processes. One very common way to reduce technology costs and improve efficiencies is data warehousing and implementing business intelligence and knowledge management systems. But in many corporations or institutions it is very hard, if not almost impossible to standardize on one platform or configuration. In order to tackle this issue, executives have to make sure that no matter how efficient technology investments are, each technology purchase is a strategic decision that must balance price vs. performance, obsolescence, and current vs. projected markets and priorities (Nelson, K. & Davenport, 1995). In many cases the costs and benefits are hidden or indirect, as technology will involve a combination of one-time and variable length recurring costs as well as hidden political decision making processes that might not be obvious for a bystander. (McCandless,1995). Besides the costs and benefits that need to be considered when making data warehouse decisions, one has to add to it the instructional development, training and incentives. Technology upgrades or technology implementation will not accomplish its mission if the end-users or administrators do not use them efficiently. For this, proper instructional trainings and business practices need to be set and adhered to. Highly trained users need less technical support, can work more efficiently and are less likely to cause technology failure or security breaches (Committee on Applications and Technology, 1993). But besides the technology, financial and training issues discussed earlier in this paper, data warehousing projects are frequently side-tracked or derailed completely by non-technical factors, in particular the political lines within the business, and the politicized nature of data itself. Because data warehouses are considered to be the infrastructure for socio-technical systems (STSs) within the firm, politics and the exercise of power are inherent in data warehousing projects. Data warehousing projects are always potentially political because they cross organization treaty lines. These projects also change both the terms of data ownership and data access, and expose the often-checkered history of data management in the IT organization. They affect the work practices of highly autonomous and powerful user communities in the firm. Therefore data warehouse designers have to adopt work practices and methods from non-technical disciplines. This means they have to think of themselves in new ways, and employ some fairly sophisticated qualitatively sociological methods in order to optimize the chances for successful deployment of data warehouses (Demarest, 1997). Crossing the organizational line comes in place when the data warehouse design is a part of a larger architectural model designed to deliver data from the points of capture (inside or outside the firm) to the points of use, probably transforming the data elements in the process. That network always crosses treaty lines: invisible boundaries within the firm that mark both "turf" and "domains of control". Information is considered knowledge; knowledge is power and businesses or individuals will not voluntarily give up their power, not even for a data warehouse within their own organization. And this is where data ownership and data access politics comes into play. If there is any rule that does apply across organizations regardless of their market focus or structure, it is this: power accrues to those who gather data and control access to that data. But the real political problem with data warehousing is not the loss of data ownership that such projects imply, but the loss of control over access to the raw data itself. This can be frightening for any group with dirty, ambiguous or unflattering data which, as the past has shown can be in almost any commercial organization operating today (Greenfield, 2005). Companies, organizations, departments as well as individuals have the potential and in most cases the desire and need to create different political structures to protect and control the management, company information assets and success of their entity (Finney, 1995). Information in today’s data and technology world is important and vital. It is political; and having and controlling information is power.  Failure to recognize this fact can be very career limiting for the IT professional trying to implement a data warehouse project but also inhibit the growth of the corporation, by not using existing information for strategic and “political” business decision making. Just alone when making the decision of which IT system needs to be implemented, the IT manager is faced with a large amount of information, which is used to make the appropriate decision. The IT solution selection criteria are based on price, support, vendor reputation, compatibility, expandability, reliability and useful life. In addition to that you might have additional factors such as pre-existing partnerships with manufacturers or personal preferences (Strassmann 1996). A very important function, probably the most important, of an IT professional and decision maker is to think and communicate ideas and visions effectively. The IT manager has to be flexible to change his managerial decision making role by widening broader range of domestic and international knowledge. They can no longer make effective decisions based on static and local information but need to go beyond organizational and even national boundaries to promote their data warehouse project. As discussed earlier in this paper, a warehouse project is a socio-technical project and will require a lot more than just technical, statistical and financial facts to make a successful project. (Aggarwal, R. M. 1998). It is important to understand today’s information systems and the relevance of technology to today's strategic and political environment (National Defense University, 1997). Another main reason why people, IT managers and/or executive management make political decisions is the fact, that those with decision authority are invariably motivated by their own sets of personal and professional goals. It is inevitably, but some of these decisions might not always be consistent with those of the organization. There is always the situation where personal goals or professional interest will be in the way when it comes to factual and advantageous decision making. A good example is the IT manager who not only has the project oversight, but also authority over contracts including purchasing power. This will eventually lead to situations, where decisions are based on the next career promotion, existing budget cuts, personal contacts to service providers as well as possible financial incentives from the product manufacturer. The same scenario might occur, where existing and maybe long lasting cooperation or supplier contracts bind IT managers or corporations to make political decisions. The existing cooperation or contract might no longer provide the best and needed solution but "politics" dictates the decisions. These kinds of political decision-makings might have a financial background where the IT manager is forced to choose one product over another, because the budget is limited. Also, the corporation might have policies not to purchase certain products due to "political" reasons such as not wanting to support the competition, not wanting to purchase a product that was developed outside the US or reasons such as preferring another company due to intuition rather than factual data (Strassmann 1996). Besides the personal interest during the decision making process, there is the phenomenon of “information politics”. It is the result of IT managers and executive staff, who have realized and recognized, that information is power and if properly applied, can provide competitive advantage to individuals as well as organizations. This power can be used for their own advancement and benefit. As research has shown, two out of three (67 per cent) British managers believe that information does not always flow freely for political reasons and fifty-nine per cent of respondents who have had vital information withheld from them cited politics as the reason (Bradford, 1994). It is a fact that power accrues to those who gather data and control access to data. In many cases, decision makers who hold these powers are reluctant to share their power with their subordinates and therefore do not make information available for corporate use. This leads to “political” decision making rather than a decision that will benefit the entire corporation in the long run. Unfortunately, most corporate cultures spawn a climate where executives make IT-related decisions without gaining input from key stakeholders or “political” reasons. These decisions and projects are doomed to fail because relevant and affected parties were not called on to consider all elements of the issue and the solution. Besides being a waste of money, ill-conceived decisions drain resources from more constructive pursuits and damage the morale of the employees or end-users. Most common set of factors contributing to data warehousing project failure are not design factors or technology factors or procedural factors, but sociotechnical factors: people and politics. And as discussed in this paper, these socio-technical and non-technical political issues that dictate how businesses view data warehousing and IT decision making in relation to their enterprise politics. These issues can be summarized as three common threads why data warehousing projects engender political issues. The first argument is that data warehousing imposes new obligations whose responsibilities are unclear. Data warehousing also requires changes in processes that an organization is comfortable with and last, data warehousing requires agreement on some, but not all, definitions of data (Demarest, 1997). Information technology is, for better or for worse, social these days. Because the IT systems that exist in any kind of business, might these be decision support systems, computer-supported collaborative work environments, workflow systems, intranets, extranets, are all deeply and inextricably social applications of IT: computing applied to groups of people with power, status and a network of relationships. And that, in turn, means IT professionals have no choice but to get into organizational politics, understand the forms, shapes and paths organizational politics takes, and become astute at navigating in a political environment. Politics plays an important role in data warehouse project as well as any IT project for that matter and cannot be separated because politics is a feature of the landscape and the beast standing between us and the gate marked "successful project conclusion."