Master Data Management
Organizing large amounts of customer, product or financial data into accurate and consistent information for immediate use across an enterprise has become a performance and productivity issue for every large business and government entity. In the financial services Industry, brokerage companies need up-to-the minute accurate information about clients and securities. Telecomunications companies need synchronized services, product, and customer information to improve productivity by dynamically bundling products and services. Energy companies need accurate drilling and distribution data to manage utilization of wells and pipelines. By synchronizing information assets, organizations can eliminate errors, become more operationally efficient and accelerate critical processes such as new marketing programs, service provisioning, and customer service.
Master Data Management (MDM) is not a new problem; however, successfully addressing this challenge, and leveraging it into organizational value is a process that can be difficult and costly if not done correctly. VIP can help you define and understand MDM, and the extraordinary value it provides. We offer an overview of the different architecture types within MDM, and can help you determine and implement the solutions that best suit your organizational needs.
VIP has separated our MDM offerings into three tracks – Business, Data, and Technical - which are intertwined together. Our MDM “collection” is a series of discrete, low-risk engagements that deliver immediate value and quick wins for your organization. They encompass the following:
The business case must be the starting point, and will drive the process. Objectives of this track are to:
• Assess the organization’s present ability to deliver on the Business Case
• Determine state of sponsorship, stakeholder buy-in, etc.
• Tie Enterprise vision and mission to MDM
• Assess current state of Governance and other Business side preparation; Define future state
To ensure success, the business track must have an “Executive Driver” on the client side, someone who owns the assets and drives the budget. The person in this role focuses the Organization, promotes the initiative, enforces the rules, and manages the Steering Committee. The Steering Committee distributes authority, provides oversight, maintains direction across functional areas, and communicates to the organization.
Although projects must be driven by the business track, you can only prepare for implementation by understanding and having a strategy around data and technology. At a minimum, for every column of every table in the MDM hub there must be accurate data about where the value came from, what transformations were performed to get it into the hub data model format, what business rules were applied to it, and which applications receive updates to it. During this track, we will determine the attributes in source systems, the overlap in values and format in source systems, the data structure & schema of sources, as well as the “business objects or entities.” Based upon these findings, we will define and map the attributes & characteristics of the master data, and identify business rules between sources.
Infrastructure is a very important track as organizations need to be able to deliver the solution. We will build an Architecture Readiness Roadmap, which will help informa and prepare your organization for MDM project planning. During this process, we'll identify the limitations in the current infrastructure and support model, and prepare you for future technology requirements. We will provide you with findings, technical & architectural recommendations, a gap analysis on current state versus future direction, and recommend next steps with identified tactical steps, as well as infrastructure needs.
