by Angela Guess
Jane Griffin recently lamented, “As much as I preach the importance of sound MDM to everyone I meet, the master data problem only seems to be getting worse. Many of the executives I’ve talked with recently say their companies are thinking about – or are in the midst of – implementing MDM initiatives to help standardize their master data enterprise wide. However, I’m also hearing quite a few stories about how difficult it is to actually implement an MDM project. For that reason, and because I’m such an advocate of MDM and the potential benefits it can bring to any company, I’d like to address several common pitfalls you’re likely to encounter in implementing an MDM project and suggest ways to help avoid them.”
Griffin continues, “One of the most common pitfalls I’ve seen is when companies try to identify and standardize all their master data elements in a single initiative. This “big bang” approach usually doesn’t work for any IT project, MDM initiatives included. It often simply causes confusion and makes master data problems seem intractable.”
Griffin adds, “Instead of trying to resolve all your master data issues at once, begin small with a pilot project on a single master data element. I recommend beginning with the “customer” master data element. This is the most pervasive data element in many companies, and it is linked to most other master data elements. Thus, it is likely that once the customer data element is standardized, you’ll have a leg up on standardizing other master data elements such as materials, vendor, product, etc. Also, once you’ve gotten your feet wet and better understand how the standardization process works, it should be easier to tackle more than one data element at a time.”
Read about more MDM pitfalls here.
photo credit: UnorthodoxY
