by Angela Guess
Phillip Russom recently made the argument for multi-data-domain master data management. It begins, “Most user organizations deploy single-domain MDM solutions. The most popular data domain is customer data, but other common domains for MDM are (in priority order) financials, products, partners, employees, and locations. Here’s the problem with single-data-domain MDM. It’s a barrier to having common, consensus-based entity definitions and standard reference data that would allow you to correlate information across multiple domains.”
Russom continues, “I wish it weren’t true, but I still see most MDM solutions as focused on the customer data domain — and that’s all. If MDM addresses other domains — typically financial or product data — that’s done in a separate solution, with little or integration with MDM for customer data. Some user organizations have multiple customer-focused MDM solutions, say one each for marketing analytics, direct marketing, sales pipeline, customer service, and so on. So much for a single view of the customer! These organizations have their hands full consolidating customer-data-domain MDM solutions, and that delays the next step, which is multi-data-domain MDM.”
He goes on, “Despite these dire situations, I’ve also encountered user organizations that have successfully extended MDM to span multiple data domains. And some of these spoke at TDWI’s Solution Summit on Master Data in March 2011. For example, Cathy Burrows from Royal Bank of Canada explained how they consolidated multiple MDM solutions to create a single, central, and governed MDM solution that provides a rich, accurate, and even intimate view of each customer. They’re now enriching customer views with reference data about the products these customers have.”
