by Angela Guess
A recent article provides some perspective on how to ascertain whether or not your company is ready for a master data management strategy. The article begins, “Since the days when the first computer spit out data from its miles of wires and labyrinths of vacuum tubes, the euphoria (begone, slide rule!) has been replaced by a feeling of dread. What happened when you plugged in the next UNIVAC in an adjacent building? How could you reconcile the series of 1s and 0s from one computer when you had another stream of data coming from the next one? While times have certainly changed, the problem of disconnected data has not. In fact, it is now at a crisis level in many organizations.”
The article continues, “In the past decade, the de rigueur technology for every information quality problem has been master data management (MDM). Vendors have presented MDM as the cureall for all data-driven ills. Unfortunately, the hype has smothered a dirty little truth—the issues with “multiple versions of the truth” were supposed to be reconciled by data warehouses, enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, and customer relationship management (CRM). MDM takes that abstraction to a cross-functional level, but the general focus is the same: to create a single, unified view of a data entity.”
It goes on, “First, figure out if MDM is what you need, or if another initiative will suffice. If your data management challenges are more finite, or if you have a smaller number of applications within the organization, MDM might be overkill for your situation. There are other ways to achieve a ‘single view’ outside of MDM. Creating a reference data ‘lookup’ or migrating other data to an existing CRM or ERP system can achieve many of the goals of MDM—without the costs. Realize that MDM is not a technology but a shift in mindset. After embarking on an MDM deployment, people soon understand that technology is not the most difficult element. It’s the countless meetings, often accompanied by turf wars and political skullduggery, that result from unifying systems. Seemingly easy questions such as ‘How do we define a customer?’ can be subject to a dozen different interpretations based on one’s position in an organization. Recognize at the outset that MDM is a marathon, not a sprint.”
photo credit: ArmyStrongPA
