What challenge is often confronted by independent data marts?

Independent data marts are often created to serve specific departments or functions within an organization. One of the challenges they frequently face is the potential for producing inconsistent data across different systems. This inconsistency arises because each data mart may pull data from various sources without a centralized governance framework to ensure data quality or uniformity. As a result, different data marts might interpret the same data in divergent ways, leading to discrepancies, redundancy, and potentially conflicting insights within the organization.

This issue can complicate decision-making processes, as stakeholders may find it challenging to trust the data or derive accurate conclusions from reports generated by disparate data sources. Ensuring consistency across independent data marts requires additional efforts, such as establishing data standards, improving data integration practices, and fostering strong communication between teams involved in data management.

The other options reflect characteristics that are not typically associated with independent data marts. Comprehensive data integration is not a strong suit of independent data marts because they often function in silos. They may require more resources to maintain due to the complexity of managing multiple independent systems and ensuring data quality. Finally, scaling these data marts may not be straightforward, as adding new data sources or aligning them with organizational growth often requires careful planning and integration efforts, which can be more complex than scaling a unified