Many organizations have a requirement to understand their business data, improve data quality and locate the right information across the organization. This could be for regulatory reporting purposes, auditing or general business processing.

Indeed an organization can only assess its own performance by looking back at its data, current or historical to identify how it is performing against it’s goals and targets. Equally, for predictive analytics, organizations need to have access to the correct data applicable to them. In order to obtain this insight, there are certain data elements which are critical to deriving these desired outcomes.

However, many organizations do not have immediate access to these critical business data. When the information exists, it is often perceived to be inaccurate. Business users therefore end up extracting data. They spend hours or days manipulating the data to get to figures which appear reasonable. This often causes problems when different domains or departments across an organization, have performed similar activities but inevitably arrive at different outcomes. A crucial data management capability which helps to reduce such issue is Master Data Management.

Master data refers to accurate data is which is used consistently across the organization. This is also referred to as conformed data. It indicates the definition of the data business term has been aligned across business areas such as Finance, Sales, Procurement, and HR. Master data is curating business data to derive a trusted source of business data – golden record, which is easily identified and used to the benefit of the organization.

Master data management applies to organization of all sizes. Master data can be curated in various ways and using methodologies that suits various organizational requirements.

Organization data is usually obtained from various business applications and merged into a data hub. An organization may get data from its sales portal, logistics hub , stock count application and supplier portal. These data originate from different sources and contain terms which may be named differently across the different applications due to logical naming requirements for such applications.

When data from all the various sources are integrated into a business data storage platform, they may retain the same name from the source applications.

Master data ensures the terms are matched and merged to a unified business term. This allows business users to search for familiar terms, to retrieve the correct information from the Master data hub (Golden record).

This Master data repository will hold related names and synonyms which will increase business user confidence in the business term returned. Does this sound like a familiar scenario to your organization?

In some organizations, data structures, hierarchies and taxonomies give rise to similar names across a single application. The lack of a master data management hub in such organizations, often leads to different business users misinterpreting business terminologies and presenting reporting which falls short of business requirements.

Establishing and curating master data for an organization is essential for uniform and complete understanding of the organization and its data. If an organization wants to have an accurate understanding of its business, it is crucial that it manages it’s master data.

As an essential process in an organization, Master data management should be driven and backed by influential stakeholders and CxOs in an organization otherwise the project is likely to get less support than required and it’s funding likely to be impacted.

Business decision makers should be aware of the importance of a master data management to realise the value of their data and improve processes across the organization. There are significant risks associated with lack of master data management and decision makers should be aware of these.

Master Data Management is a continuous process. The value added is sooner realized when initiating projects. The time to deliver such projects is reduced. Business users spend less time searching for business terms when required.

Measuring the time to deliver projects prior to implementing Master Data Management is an important metric to help decision makers and users appreciate the benefit of the MDM. Time taken to produce reports and answer business questions are also important metrics which can be recorded.

The ease of access to the golden record also makes it efficient for teams to find information and reference the information anytime it is required.

Have you ever completed a new application installation or a migration however business users struggle to find the business data they require for their day to day activities? You likely need a Master Data.

Similarly, to improve data quality, it is essential to have MDM.

Often Data projects or Business Intelligence Projects get stalled or restricted in use due to a lack of master data. It is therefore important to assess and ensure that Master Data Management is incorporated into business data activities.

Final thoughts; do you have your master data covered?

Next time you want to embark on that new project, think, do we have our master data curated? This could really be the make or break factor in terms of cost and the ability to realize desired outcomes from your project

Reach out today to discuss your Master Data Management requirements including a proof of concept and determining your organizations Data maturity capability.