Andy argues that data warehousing and ERP were failed attempts to get "one version of the truth". In MDM emphasis is on business ownership of data i.e. Data governance. Well written. Having dedicated resources to take ownership from business and clear definitions of "customer" and "product" are crucial to success.
"Building a proper business case is a key element of an MDM initiative. It is only by analysing the costs of the current state of duplicate data and estimating what that is costing the business in lost orders, incorrect deliveries or invoices, misplaced inventory, inability to cross-sell or lower customer satisfaction and retention, that executives will stand up and take notice.
By building a business case around such hard data, it should be possible to get senior management attention. In some cases where this has happened, it has also been possible to gain the necessary senior level support for true data governance initiatives. Such activities, business-led rather than IT-led, involve identifying the key data and processes of a company and agreeing who should be ultimately responsible for defining business terms. Such groups also take ownership for resolving disagreements when they arise, e.g., over whose definition of “gross margin” should actually be used. Significant resources need to be assigned to such activities, not just as a one-off project basis but on a permanent basis.
The best run companies are putting in place such data governance initiatives and giving budget and power to the data governance groups that are needed to resolve definitions and resolve data quality.
An MDM project may still struggle even after data governance has been established, but if a strong data governance initiative can be built and sustained, then MDM projects have a least a chance of success."
Once data governance is resolved then also the success of an MDM team is dependent on a highly competent technical team. Companies like Infotrellis should be invited at this point to ensure successful implementation.
Companies should read this before coming up with their MDM strategy.
in reference to:
BeyeNETWORK: Data Governance – The Rock on Which MDM is Built (
view on Google Sidewiki)
About :
Andy Hayler - founder and CEO of The Information Difference, a boutique analyst and market research firm, advising corporations, venture capital firms and software companies. He is a regular keynote speaker at international conferences on master data management, data governance and data quality. He is also a respected restaurant critic and author (
www.andyhayler.com). Andy has an award-winning blog
www.andyonsoftware.com. He can be contacted at
Andy.hayler@informationdifference.com.
Infotrellis - InfoTrellis provides strategic consulting to help clients define and achieve their Customer Data Integration (CDI) and Master Data Management (MDM) vision. It was founded by the team which architected and developed WebSphere Customer Center (WCC), formerly known as DWL Customer, the market leading CDI/MDM solution by IBM/DWL and in the process created the CDI/MDM space. Services provided by InfoTrellis team cover all aspects of a CDI/MDM solution lifecycle ranging from evaluating client's CDI/MDM needs, capturing detail business requirements, vendor selection, design & implementation, testing, deployment and training.
info@infotrellis.com
