Master Data Management (MDM)

What is Master Data?

Master data is the high-value, core information used to support critical business processes across the enterprise

Why is it Important?

Master Data is information about customers, suppliers, partners, products, materials, employees, accounts and more

Master Data is at the heart of every business transaction, application and decision

What Is Master Data Management?

A discipline that provides a consistent understanding of master data entities, and their relationships

A set of technologies for consistent use of master and author data across the organization

A set of practices and processes designed to accommodate, control and manage change

The creation of a single, accurate and unified view of corporate data, integrating information from various data sources into one master record. This master data is then used to feed information back to the applications, creating a consistent view of information across the enterprise

Together with our high end partners, Kwezi Software Solutions is able to draw on vast experience and the best of technologies in implementing successful Master Data Management initiatives for our clients in efforts to fulfil the enterprise's business needs :

image 1. Revenue
  • Identify cross-sell, up-sell opportunities
  • Customise product offerings and bundles
  • Introduce new products quickly
  • Identify high value customers
  • Improve customer retention

2. Agility/Strategic Initiative
  • Consolidate data silos/Integrate new systems quickly
  • Meet demands of new business channels
  • Grow with the business
  • Identify key relationships and hierarchies

3. Cost
  • Automate manual business processes
  • Reduce data errors
  • Eliminate excess mailings
  • Identify risk(credit)
  • Support system consolidation initiatives

4. Compliance
  • Reduce risk
  • Control access to data
  • Adhere to government and corporate regulations
  • Manage customer privacy preferences

Why embark on an MDM initiative?

Master data management (MDM) has become a crucial discipline, with MDM solutions positioned at the centre of many organisations' IT architectures.

There are key trends which shape this market's growth and evolution, and each trend has its own set of complexities.

1. Managing multiple MDM domains
  • Single MDM initiatives are expanded into dual or multi domain MDM
  • TCO will be kept low if existing MDM applications can be expanded into multi domains
  • Reference data as the next step.
  • Failure to manage reference data sets can be a significant business risk.
  • According to Forrester's MDM Survey, 47% of the respondents have MDM programs that include more than two data domains, while yet another 9% are focused on dual-domain solutions
  • The time has now come to make MDM multi-department and multi-application.
 2. MDM and Big Data
  • Massive data, enormous amount of information
  • Analytics enables you to stay on top
  • No insight into revenue loss due to cancellations and returns can be avoided
  • Example of valuable reports
  • Order, Invoiced, Returned, Cancelled amount
  • Perfect order
  • Rate of return
  • Back order rate
  • Value of minimum and average order
 
3. MDM in the cloud
  • Is Master Data Management ready to move into the Cloud?
  • Use of public cloud solutions only to meet the individual MDM needs of specific business stakeholders
  • Consider on premise setup or private clouds for business critical MDM implementations
  • MDM in the Cloud is an early trend
  • Analysts expect that it will not take off until the earliest 2014
 4. Real-time operation
  • Real-time operation is necessary as a complement to batch operation
  • Real-time operation is critical to many processes within or dependent on MDM
  • Verification of data
  • Identity resolution
  • Data distribution
  • Credit risk and more
 
5. Collaboration in MDM
  • MDM requires a lot of communication and coordination between several types of people
  • An entity could mean different things for different departments
  • Distribution of new or updated records requires more collaboration
  • MDM needs workflow capabilities to help collaborative efforts succeed
  • MDM is not a technical fix. It must be aligned with business goals for data
  • To manage the collaboration organizational structures as set up
 6. Data Governance
  • Data governance will move from simple data stewardship to more advanced programs
  • It is a prerequisite to the success of many other initiatives
  • The business takes up data governance
  • Data governance initiatives which are primarily IT driven run a high risk of failure (70% of data governance efforts are primarily IT-driven Forrester)
  • Good data governance programs will still be in the minority for the next 3 years