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Posts from the ‘Assessment’ Category

23
May
Elephant at Pilanesberg National Park, South Africa

Africom’s PROTEA Program

Our 300th article. After this year’s Gartner MDM Summit conference (May 4-6 in Los Angeles), Hub Designs sent a small team to a new client in South Africa called Africom.  Read more »

12
Nov
Kalido Logo

Kalido Data Governance Maturity Survey Results

This morning, Kalido, a Hub Designs partner, released an initial analysis based on the almost 100 responses it received to its Data Governance Maturity Assessment Survey.

The results were not surprising, but I found them very interesting nonetheless. Keep in mind that this was a self-selecting group; that is, people who were interested enough in data governance to have taken the survey. That suggests that the general population would be even less mature.

The biggest finding was that only 10% of organizations have been able to move their data governance programs beyond the first two levels of data governance maturity. That matches well with our experience at Hub Designs – most companies are just getting started with data governance.

Despite the commonly expressed belief that data should be owned by the business, traditional IT organizations are accountable for data in nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of organizations.  At Hub Designs, we believe that the business should be accountable for the data – but sometimes, that’s a “bridge too far”. You’ve got to start where you are, and evolve over time to higher levels of maturity. If the center of gravity right now is in the IT organization, that that’s where you start. But over time, have a strategy for moving data governance into the business.

Nearly half (45 percent) of organizations taking the survey said they have a formal data governance council in place, but only 27 percent have established a data governance council with business representation and formal data stewardship. That tells me that even in places where they’re doing some type of (immature) data governance, there are still lots of opportunities for improvement, by increasing the level of business involvement, stewardship and data quality.

This finding I found stunning: more than half (57 percent) of organizations do not measure the performance of data management activities at all. That leads me to believe that those organizations won’t be doing data management for much longer, because lack of measurement tends to lead to lack of funding, because of a perceived lack of documented results.

Clearly, we have a long way to go in the corporate world in becoming more mature from a data governance perspective. I really liked Kalido’s survey, and you can find Winston Chen, Kalido’s VP of strategy and business development, discussing it on his blog at http://bit.ly/cbckxD.

Speaking of Kalido, Hub Designs is sponsoring their upcoming Virtual User Conference on December 7, 2010. The Kalido Connect virtual conference provides attendees with a cutting-edge platform for networking, exhibition, collaboration and learning. Attendees can watch a presentation in a packed auditorium, network with peers in the Kalido Connect Lounge, or visit fully interactive sponsor booths on the exhibit floor. From group chats to one-on-one discussions, the virtual platform allows for a live conference and exhibition floor with real-time user interaction. To register, just click http://bit.ly/kalido-register.

Kalido Connect offers:

  • Real-world examples of Kalido’s business value as told by their customers
  • Keynote sessions on BI, MDM and data governance trends and how to keep ahead of the curve
  • Technical breakout sessions to maximize your investment in the Kalido Information Engine™ and expand your skill set
  • Exhibit hall showcasing complementary products and services from Kalido partners and sponsors
  • Opportunities to network with colleagues, industry leaders and executives

Last year, more than 300 people attended the Kalido Connect Virtual User Conference, and Kalido expects to double that this year.

24
Oct
Changes Next Exit

Organizational Readiness for MDM

The Hub Designs Blog welcomes a great guest post by Rob DuMoulin, an information architect with more than 26 years of IT experience, specializing in master data management, database administration and design, and business intelligence.  Rob wrote a popular 5-part series called Data Profiling for All the Right Reasons, and his first article was Calendar and MDM. He brings a fresh perspective from the front lines of MDM.

Is my organization ready for Master Data Management (MDM)?

Assuming you’re confident that you can answer the question “What is MDM?” and can successfully debate “what MDM is not” with an unseasoned Data Architect, the title question is next in your readiness assessment progression.

While the question itself seems simplistic, the answer requires examination of many aspects of business operations as well as data management and IT maturity.

MDM projects focused on creating “IT solutions” to “IT problems” fail to provide true end-to-end life-cycle management, which is the key to maximizing business value. Below are questions to consider when evaluating your business readiness for MDM success. Consider the Core Subject Item to be the business object that you are considering mastering, such as Product, Customer, Raw Materials, Party, etc.

  • MDM success relies on understanding the current and desired state of business operations. Identifying and involving business champions and business sponsors is the only credible method of defining information and process gaps which lead to a true business case.  Are your business sponsors fully engaged?
  • Is there a Data Governance strategy in place already that can be used to manage business information or do we need to define this from scratch?
  • Is the business case defined and does it directly tie to the project success criteria?
  • What is the Core Subject Item of your MDM? Have you validated that business owners, Finance, Customers, Marketing, Legal, and IT all have the same perspectives, including the same granularity and the same definitions? If not, how will you resolve the differences?
  • What are the target volumetrics for the Core Subject Item based on current and anticipated business needs?
  • Is there a single Taxonomy for your Core Subject Item where all objects map to one and only one leaf node?
  • Have you created an as-is information model?
  • Have you created a to-be information model that business and IT sponsors agree on?
  • Would you be able to define a conceptual data model to describe the various high-level information types targeted for the MDM system?
  • In the case of product MDM, can business users define the difference between a version and a revision, if there is one? How do they manage each?
  • Is there unstructured data you need to include?
  • How are object related to each other? Are some products cross-sellable, up-sellable, substitutions, or versions of others? Do some contacts household with others?
  • What rules and restrictions do you have to enforce in the MDM system?
  • What additional information must be collected to allow other downstream information consumers to apply their business rules and restrictions?
  • What is the current lifecycle process used by the business to manage its Core Subject Items? What is the proposed new process to do lifecycle management?
  • What are the technical constraints your organization will be facing?

These are just a few of the points to consider when evaluating how well your business is prepared to undertake a successful MDM project. While you do not necessarily need to answer all of them before you start your project, consider making them a milestone before full budget is allocated because it makes planning much more accurate.

Lastly, keep in mind that knowledge and experience go a long way. Those who have gone through these projects before can attest to importance of laying down a solid foundation to build upon.

30
Aug
photo by Wonderlane

Our MDM Strategy Offerings

Recently, I put together an overview of Hub Designs’ MDM strategy offerings for a potential client. Here’s a recap.

Education

  • Based on our popular “Best Practices in MDM and Data Governance” speaking engagements, presented at Oracle OpenWorld and the Oracle Applications Users Group COLLABORATE conference.
  • Our workshops get business & IT professionals up to speed quickly
  • You get access to the best MDM experts, and can bring your business people into the process early

Roadmap

  • Based on Hub Designs’ MDM framework
  • Defines where you are now, where you want to be, and over what time period
  • Looks at master data management, data integration, data quality, and data governance over time

Readiness Assessment

  • Looks at issues relating to politics & culture
  • Performs skills assessment on people who may need training
  • Examines process issues, outlining where business processes need improvement or redesign
  • Investigates technology issues, detailing where essential components are not present or not able to support your upcoming MDM initiative
  • Performs data profiling to discover data quality issues

Business Case

  • Captures business requirements
  • Identifies stakeholders and select metrics
  • Baselines current performance
  • Negotiates expected benefits
  • Converts to financial results
  • Develops total cost of ownership
  • Calculates hard-dollar ROI

Software Selection

  • Develops selection criteria
  • Creates a weighted vendor scoring model
  • Includes functionality, technology, viability, costs, services and vision
  • Develops demo scripts for vendors to follow and sample data sets to give them
  • Manages proof of concept (POC) process
  • Assists in evaluating POC performance and scoring vendors

These engagements range in length from one to twelve months, with teams varying from two to ten people, depending on the size of the company, the number of domains of master data  involved, and the complexity of the politics and legacy systems in the enterprise.

If you’re interested in discussing an MDM strategy engagement like this, please contact Hub Designs at http://www.hubdesigns.com/contact_us.html. Or if you have comments on the above approaches, please let us know by commenting here.

28
Jun

Philosophy of MDM

My philosophy of MDM is simple: all things being equal, enter and manage master data in its own repository or hub, and pay the same attention to the organization and business processes for creating, distributing, updating and retiring master data that you do for other types of data within the enterprise.

You’d be amazed how often that simple statement confounds people though. They want to enter master data in their ERP or CRM system, and then synchronize it over to the MDM hub. Or they’d like to somehow do without an organization to manage their master data for the enterprise. Or they’re willing to concede the need for a data governance group, but don’t think that group will need any formal processes or technology to help orchestrate their work or facilitate it and improve their productivity.

Even though the link between data quality tools and master data management is well established, I sometimes still see people try to do MDM projects without using data quality technology. And even though synchronizing the high quality master data available in the hub should be a high priority, people (typically for cost reasons) still try to skimp on integration technology and try to get by with only the most basic ETL tools.

One of the most popular articles we’ve had here on the Hub Designs Blog was the Five Essential Elements of MDM, in which I laid out what I thought were the most important related areas of technology. In it, I included the MDM hub itself, of course, and also data quality, data integration, middleware, third party content and data governance (which of course, is not really technology, but needs to be included because it too is so often forgotten).

So getting back to the focus of this article, my philosophy of MDM is to have all of the essential elements, to have a sound vision and strategy for MDM, a strong business case based on metrics, to create a governance framework and organization to carry it out, to design governance processes, and then (last but not least) to implement technology to facilitate the governance needed to support the enterprise’s master data requirements.

So often today, we see organizations taking a technology-driven approach, or leaving out important parts of the above approach.  Have you thought your MDM initiative all the way through?

14
Jan

MDM Institute Survey

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Please participate in a short but important survey at http://0036f23.netsolhost.com/1q2009_mdm_update.htm

The MDM Institute is surveying people at Global 5000 enterprises with active MDM or Data Governance initiatives — e.g., enterprise architects, VPs of infrastructure, corporate data governance managers, et al within enterprises of annual revenues greater than US $1 billion.

The survey can be done in less than 5 minutes, and all respondents completing it by end-of-day Friday, January 30th will receive a scorecard report that participants can share with IT and business management during early February 2009.

Thank you on behalf of The MDM Institute team!

26
Nov

November Column in DM Review

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Here’s a brief excerpt from my latest “MDM Insights” column in DM Review.

In the past, I‘ve outlined the five essential elements of master data management: (1) an MDM hub of some type, (2) data integration or middleware, (3) data quality capabilities, (4) external content and (5) data governance.

One of the challenges of MDM is trying to make progress in all five of these areas at once, while simultaneously working across the spectrum of people, process, technology and information.

Think of it as the “big bang” approach to MDM. You evaluate and select an MDM hub, and in the process, you discover that your organization doesn’t have adequate data integration or data quality tools available. And while working with the business on what internal source systems and external content providers need to be integrated with the new hub, you realize that your organization finally needs to get serious about data governance as well. It can be a little overwhelming.

Click on “Easing Into Master Data Management” to continue reading.

As always, please let us know what you think by commenting here …

23
Sep

Announcing an Intensive, Two-Day On-Site Seminar

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Two-Day, On-Site MDM Seminar

Attaining High Quality, Integrated Information

High quality, integrated master data is all that matters in your business/IT landscape. Sure, people, processes and technology are important. After all, they get the brunt of everyone’s attention. But in the end, superior business intelligence, smooth transactions and harmonious customer interactions all depend on the quality and usability of your master data.

Why This Seminar Program?

Hub Designs and Perera have teamed up to create this important, two-day on-site seminar program for organizations struggling with low quality, fragmented enterprise data. With over 40 years of combined experience, you can expect a new level of practical insight that is unavailable in any other forum.

Our goal is to bring unparalleled Master Data Management expertise to your front door. A blend of education and hands-on guidance, your organization will gain the knowledge to confidently undertake and succeed with your MDM initiative… and transform your enterprise master data into an appreciating corporate asset.

Agenda For Mastering Your Data

Together, we will explore the issues, challenges and opportunities associated with creating and maintaining high quality, integrated enterprise master data:

  • Creating a business case for managing customer, product, supplier, financial and employee master data
  • Analyzing the types, nature and severity of enterprise data quality problems
  • Determining quality and integration requirements for enterprise master data
  • Creating enterprise master data architecture and models
  • Formulating a plan to correct and transform your existing enterprise master data
  • Developing and embracing master data content and format standards
  • Integrating and synchronizing master reference data within and across enterprise systems
  • Identifying, evaluating and selecting MDM software and third-party data sources
  • Designing data quality processes for continuous master data management
  • Determining metrics for assessing, monitoring and certifying the quality of master data
  • Organizing and managing a data governance and stewardship program
Who Should Participate?

This program is geared to business, project management and IT personnel who are actively involved in Master Data Management (MDM), Customer Data Integration (CDI) and data quality initiatives. The ideal session brings together up to 15 participants from your organization to discuss the production, distribution, consumption and maintenance of enterprise data.

By conducting this program at your site, stakeholders have the flexibility to join program segments that are appropriate to their functional areas. We charge a fixed program fee so you can tailor attendance to your needs.

Schedule TODAY!

For more information or to schedule this two-day program at your location, please call us at 781-749-8910 or visit our web site

17
Jul

July Column in DM Review

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Here’s a quick excerpt from my latest “MDM Insights” column in DM Review.

It’s a long journey from the first efforts of “customer cleanup” to a full-fledged data governance program. But that’s where many companies start. They gradually accept that there are issues with their customer data such as:

  • A lack of consistently applied standards and controls,
  • Problems arising from conversion of customer data from acquired companies,
  • Lack of ownership of customer data,
  • Invalid addresses leading to undelivered and returned mail or
  • Customer service problems caused by large numbers of duplicate and inaccurate records.

So they form a committee, hire a consulting firm, and involve their internal IT folks. That’s a great start, but it’s important to realize that this is not a once-and-done project.

Click on “From Customer Cleanup to Data Governance” to continue reading.

And please let us know your thoughts by commenting here …

31
Mar

MDM and Data Governance – the Value of Planning

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Building a “Single Version of the Truth” can be more expensive than you expect, and documenting and measuring its ROI requires careful thought.

Good planning is more necessary than ever in an uncertain economic climate. The result of inadequate planning can be misdirected spending, chewing up valuable time and resources and then, six or twelve months later, having to go back and “right the ship”. And the second time around, the efforts are often overstaffed (to “make up for lost time”), while the organization as a whole might still be marching down the wrong path.

Master data management and data governance initiatives can have a disruptive effect on the organization, and the budget is often millions of dollars. Now the stakes are even higher, because in times of economic uncertainty, the pressure is on to “do more with less” and to take shortcut approaches for achieving corporate data objectives.

One such shortcut is to turn the MDM initiative into a “technology-only” project, perpetuating a “silo” approach to data and selectively purchasing the latest data quality or hub tools. This approach should be used with caution, because at the end of the day, data is still data, and without process and stewardship, even the latest technologies will probably fail to meet the intended objectives.

Because of the organizational effects (new processes, roles and responsibilities) in MDM and the budget requirements, our advice is to take the time for a readiness assessment, understand where on the maturity curve you are, see if your business drivers make a sufficient case, think through cultural issues, etc.

The results of an assessment may surprise you. Even with a strong business case and senior management buy-in, don’t underestimate the amount of preparation and time that a well conceived planning process for MDM and data governance will take.

27
Feb

Metadata and Master Data Management

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Metadata management is often overlooked, misunderstood or assumed to be taken care of automatically as part of an MDM initiative. While it’s true that databases can generate metadata reports based on a logical data model, there’s a lot more than that to metadata management in an MDM initiative.

As companies start to include multiple domains such as customers, products, suppliers, etc. in their MDM initiatives, the collaborative lifecycle management of the master data across business and IT functions will become a challenging change management undertaking.

One of the key benefits to addressing metadata management is to lower cost of ownership by documenting the entire end-to-end process for master data at the metadata level that greatly enhances change control across business and IT functions.

“Metadata is structured information that describes, explains, locates, or otherwise makes it easier to retrieve, use, or manage an information resource. Metadata is often called ‘data about data’ or ‘information about information’” (National Information Standards Organization, 2004).

Metadata within an MDM initiative includes all of the following: the source systems, MDM hub, data quality tools, business process management (BPM) and workflow tools, and enterprise application integration (EAI) tools.

The need for metadata for different semantics between the source systems and the MDM hub is the most apparent, as a source and hub may call the same thing by different names, e.g. part number versus SKU.

However the business rules, transformations and data rules in the data quality, BPM and EAI tools are often overlooked. Yet the complete data lineage from source to hub and back to source needs to be fully documented at the metadata layer.

So if managing metadata is so important, how does one go about managing it?

There are three approaches to managing metadata: a centralized approach, a distributed approach or a federated (hybrid) approach.

The centralized approach stores all metadata centrally, providing easy access to information, scalability and performance. This approach is more complex to integrate initially than the distributed approach, requires continuous synchronization and is also a single point of failure.

The distributed approach takes advantage of each participating system’s own metadata management capabilities and simply reads the information as required. In essence, this is simply a web portal that queries the relevant information from all participating systems on demand.

The federated approach is similar to the distributed approach in maintaining references to the metadata information for all participating systems. But also like the centralized approach, it can store metadata information locally, thus taking advantage of the best of the centralized and distributed approaches.

Choosing the best approach for an organization depends on a number of factors. The metadata capabilities of some of the existing systems in use by an organization may prohibit the federated or distributed approach, so a thorough assessment of your current tools is a necessary consideration.

Also if you are planning on upgrading existing tools, make sure that the selections fit into your metadata management approach.

MDM initiatives will require significant attention to be paid to semantics across the enterprise and metadata management in order to be successful.

25
Feb

Our MDM Partnership Strategy

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At Hub Solution Designs, our MDM partnership strategy is pretty straightforward.

We are a management & technology consulting firm focused exclusively on Master Data Management and Data Governance.  Our strategy is to partner with all of the leading MDM vendors, because there is no “one-size fits all” solution and businesses need options here.  So our strategy is to provide unbiased solutions that best meet the needs of our clients.

Partnering with all of the MDM vendors is an ambitious strategy, but as Teddy Roosevelt said, “Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing”.

And pragmatically speaking, as trusted advisors who bring a tested methodology and sound best practices to bear on every MDM engagement,  we think the question of which consulting firm or systems integrator you select is, if anything, more important than which MDM hub platform you select.

So here’s where we stand today with the three MDM “mega-vendors” (Oracle, IBM and SAP) and the three smaller MDM vendors (Siperian, Initiate Systems and Purisma/D&B).

Oracle: We joined the Oracle Partner Network as a worldwide partner in November 2007. Several of our team members have extensive experience with Oracle’s growing portfolio of MDM solutions, and have driven successful implementations of them at financial services institutions, software companies, and high tech firms. We have good relationships with Oracle’s MDM product strategy team and with Oracle sales teams around the country. We’re also involved in the independent Oracle Applications Users Group (OAUG) and, as part of its Education Committee, helped plan the MDM track of OAUG’s upcoming COLLABORATE 08 conference.

IBM: We joined IBM’s PartnerWorld program in September 2007, based on knowing several people from DWL (acquired by IBM in 2005) and other parts of IBM.  We think that IBM is going to do very well with companies in their “sweet spot” (certain industries like financial services and companies that are historically heavy users of IBM hardware or software).  So we’ll keep looking for opportunities to grow our client relationships, our team and our expertise in the area of IBM’s MDM solutions.

SAP: another slow starter, with an MDM solution that was originally very centered around the “Product” domain. But SAP’s NetWeaver MDM solution continues to evolve and develop. And SAP also has a strong “sweet spot” of companies (global manufacturers, consumer packaged goods companies and European-headquartered firms), and a large installed base of SAP applications users who are pretty loyal when it comes to considering an MDM solution from SAP. We’re just about to join the SAP partner program at the Associate Partner level to start, and have just brought on a new team member with significant experience in Master Data Management and SAP.

We also continue to be impressed by the smaller MDM software vendors.  We think we’re still in the early stages of MDM market development and there’s still room for a “best of breed” MDM strategy at this point.

The Siperian MDM Hub is a robust product, and is able to identify and manage relationships among multiple types of enterprise data, such as customers, products or accounts, across multiple applications and lines of business. The company has done very well in the financial services and pharmaceutical & life sciences industries. Siperian had a more than 300% growth rate from 2006 to 2007, and just received a $25 million round of financing in January, to support additional expansion in Europe and further development of its channels and products. The Siperian customers we’ve talked to really like the product, and the Siperian people we work with are top notch. We’ve been an approved Siperian partner since October 2007, and are planning to attend the Siperian user group and partner summit in San Francisco in early April.

Initiate Systems filed with the SEC to go public in November 2007. The company was founded in 1995 and has more than 140 customers in production, in industries such as health care, financial services, public sector, retail and technology, with marquee customers such as Microsoft, Intuit, Capital One, Countrywide, Wells Fargo, Humana, Hyatt Hotels, Barnes & Noble, CVS, and SuperValu. We signed a partnership agreement with Initiate in December 2007, after talking with some Initiate people and customers at the Fall 2007 MDM Summit conference in New York. The company’s technology has some very interesting capabilities, and we’re impressed with what we’ve seen to date of the product, the company and its people.

Purisma (a D&B company): Prior to starting Hub Solution Designs in mid-2007, I worked for Dun & Bradstreet for three years in its Global Alliance team, managing D&B’s strategic alliance with Oracle. I was part of various CDI and MDM related teams and initiatives within D&B, and was one of the few people from D&B to attend the first public CDI-MDM Summit conference in Spring 2006.  After being an internal MDM evangelist at D&B for several years, I was pleased to see the company acquire Purisma in November 2007. The acquisition was a good strategic fit for both companies, allowing D&B to become more of a player in the Customer Data Integration (CDI) and MDM marketplace, and giving Purisma the chance to extend its market reach.  We’re not formal partners with D&B/Purisma yet, but we’re working on it, and in the meantime, our network of informal relationships within both companies continues to grow.

After establishing and growing our relationships with all of these companies, we’re listening carefully to what our clients and the market as a whole are telling us about their relative strengths & weaknesses, who has the best product for which situation in which industries, and who’s growing their market share over time.  We think there will be some additional consolidation in MDM, as in every other part of the enterprise software market, and we hope to continue as thought leaders by being able to look “around the corner” at what’s coming two to five years down the road.

We’ve got our eye on other large enterprise software players, like Microsoft, salesforce.com and Google, that are not yet really playing in the MDM space in an organized way.

Our formal & informal relationships with Oracle, IBM, SAP, Siperian, Initiate Systems and Purisma/D&B will continue to develop and grow. Our clients benefit from our solid methodology, approaches and best practices, plus the processes, procedures and data governance that we help you wrap around these MDM products, regardless of which vendor you select. Please review our service offerings for Educational Workshops, Readiness Assessment, Software Selection, and Business Case Creation to get an idea of how we help clients map out and execute a winning MDM strategy.

The vendors bring great technology and we bring great people with broad domain expertise.

19
Feb

MDM Educational Workshops and MDM Readiness Assessment

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Today, we published two one-page documents on our Educational Workshops and Readiness Assessment service offerings on our web site.

Please let us know what you think of them …

7
Feb

Is There Such a Thing as a “Quick MDM Strategy”?

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Well, the short answer is – “it depends”! Putting aside the conventional answer for the moment, I’d say that a critical first step in achieving a pragmatic MDM strategy is that your company must agree and commit to developing a 3-5 year MDM strategy.

This is not as simple as it may sound. Successfully executing an MDM strategy with a 3-5 year vision requires a considerable cross-functional effort and substantial agreement on some vexing political, business and technology issues. More on this later.

The following situation is not uncommon. A senior executive at the company decrees that the company needs an MDM solution to remain competitive or to fix nagging data issues. The vendor selection team jumps into action, solicits requirements from business owners, puts together a vendor questionnaire and contacts vendors.

The next few months are taken up with defining selection criteria, sitting through vendor demonstrations and digesting different vendors’ current approach to MDM and their future roadmaps.

The promise of a business intelligence solution, with a Single View of Customers, across CRM and ERP systems, through a federated or persistent hub is now only months away.

The demos were impressive and installation is promised to take only 8-12 weeks. After all, the company has already implemented CRM and ERP solutions, so the next solution should be much quicker – right?

Which brings us back to “it depends” The reality is that this approach may work for certain companies. Those companies who have matured through CRM and ERP implementations, who have well defined business needs and change management projects under their belts, with well documented business processes and a Project Management Office already in place stand the best chance to succeed.

But then these are the very companies who already know that they need to develop an MDM strategy, often with the help of consultants.

And this leads us to the question of developing an MDM strategy. How comprehensive does the strategy need to be? How much time is reasonable to spend developing a strategy? Can a staged approach be taken on the strategy, for example just start with customers and worry about other domains once that is working? Can we just bring a hub up with our current customer data and go from there? These are all valid questions.

One of the biggest factors that will help answer these questions is an organizational readiness assessment.

The strategy process should develop a vision for data governance, business outcomes, business processes and technology for the company. The process will touch on situation analysis, goals and objectives, strategy development, implementation plans and change management. Involving consultants through the process can greatly speed the process for many companies.

Our recommendation is that no matter how tempting a “quick win” approach to implementing MDM may seem – make sure you take some time up front to develop your strategy with both short and long term goals. Make sure that strategy is accepted throughout the organization and that the short term goals are on the correct path to solving the longer term business objectives.

This can help you avoid having to “rip & replace” your MDM solution shortly after building it, and help prevent you from creating MDM “data silos” because your strategy didn’t take into account other critical enterprise data domains beyond the immediate situation.

MDM can be a “game changing” initiative, giving the enterprise clean, consolidated, complete data for the first time, driving increased revenue, decreased costs and improved compliance. But as Stephen Covey says, make sure you “begin with the end in mind”.

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