Hub Designs Blog’s Top 10 for 2010
Inspired by Crysta Anderson from Initiate, who put together IBM’s Mastering Data Management blog Top 10 Posts of 2010, I decided to put together a similar “Top Ten Posts of 2010″ for the Hub Designs Blog.
In our holiday greetings article, Thank You To Our Readers, we covered some of the top articles from the beginning of this blog in July 2007, and included some readership statistics, which we won’t bore you with today.
Our reports on MDM vendors like Oracle, IBM Initiate, Informatica (formerly Siperian), Kalido, and Orchestra Networks were very popular in 2010. And our series on MDM best practices, practicing enterprise architecture within MDM (by Jim Parnitzke) and on data profiling (by Rob DuMoulin) were also big hits.
Without further ado, here’s the Hub Designs Blog “Top 10 for 2010″.
- Oracle’s MDM Strategy and Roadmap – A look at Oracle’s MDM strategy and roadmap, from the Oracle Applications Users Group (OAUG) COLLABORATE conference in April 2010.
- Building MDM-Powered Solutions with Initiate Composer – A description of Initiate’s new Composer product, which is a framework for building solutions on top of IBM’s Initiate Master Data Service hub.
- Master Data Management Best Practice Series, by Dan Power – A ten part series on MDM and data governance best practices, based on my presentation at Oracle OpenWorld 2010.
- Modeling the MDM Blueprint, by James Parnitzke – A six part series on applying important enterprise architecture concepts to MDM projects.
- Data Profiling For All The Right Reasons, by Rob DuMoulin – A five part series on data profiling and its role within MDM and data governance initiatives.
- Siperian Acquired By Informatica – My analysis of Siperian’s acquisition by Informatica, written on the day the news broke.
- Informatica Analyst Briefing – Hub Designs is regularly briefed by the major MDM vendors; this one by Informatica was about 2 months after the acquisition. A later briefing from October 2010 can be found here.
- Kalido MDM and AB InBev – I live blogged this at the Gartner MDM Summit during a session by Kalido’s President and CEO Bill Hewitt and Jonathan Starkey, the Director of Business Intelligence at AB InBev North America.
- Intersection of MDM, CRM and ERP – My article on Why Product Information Management in Information Management magazine sparked a short blog article by Andrew White of Gartner. The “Intersection of MDM, CRM and ERP” article is in response to Andrew’s.
- Orchestra Networks Enters Gartner Magic Quadrant – We thought it was newsworthy that Orchestra Networks, a specialized MDM vendor, was included in Gartner’s “Magic Quadrant for Master Data Management of Product Data” for the first time. Also, Orchestra Networks sponsored a white paper titled A Real Multidomain MDM Solution or a Wannabe? by Hub Designs that was published in September.
It’s been a busy 2010. I recently read the 2009 Year in Review from this time last year, and was exhausted just reading it, but this year has been the same – several conferences (Gartner MDM Summit, OAUG COLLABORATE, Oracle OpenWorld, Kalido), webinars (with eLearning Curve, TechTarget and Oracle Applications Users Group) and some exciting things to look forward to and update you on in 2011.
I’d like to to thank my wife and two boys for their unwavering support throughout 2010 – and my heartfelt thanks to the folks on the Hub Designs team - I couldn’t do it without you!
And thank you – as always – for your readership and support. Happy New Year!
First Look at Kalido Data Governance Director
I attended an analyst briefing today with Kalido on their new product, Kalido Data Governance Director.
The Kalido presenters included Bill Hewitt, President and CEO, Winston Chen, VP of Strategy and Business Development, Lovan Chetty, Senior Manager of Product Management, Mike Wheeler, Director of Data Governance Solutions and Lorita Vannah, Director of Marketing Communications. Lorita is the person who first turned me on to Kalido, about two years ago now. We first met at the 2008 Gartner MDM Summit in Chicago, and she impressed me then with her passion for MDM, data governance and her company.
Bill started off by talking about how the data governance market has been exploding as the volume of corporate data has been exploding, which is certainly true, and observed that Kalido noticed a disconnect between data and business processes. To address this issue, Kalido developed a new product from the ground up, because the company felt that data was better managed through policies. For example, it may be okay to store customer data in multiple places, as long as the relevant policy allows that.
As part of its research into data governance, Kalido developed its own data governance maturity assessment. Winston described the evolution of data governance, from application-centric to today’s “enterprise repository centric” approach. The next phase, according to Kalido, is policy centric, followed by fully governed. Winston also discussed the need to manage data policies in context: you’ve got data, but you’ve also got business processes, systems and organizational scope.
That allows you to fully describe the context in which a particular policy is being defined.
The way to operationalize governance processes is: to define the policy, to implement the policy, and then to enforce the policy, which Kalido modeled on how laws are created by the legislative branch, implemented by the executive branch, and then enforced by law enforcement and the judicial branch of government.
Kalido has been working with data quality vendors such as DataFlux and Trillium to build integration with their products into Kalido Data Governance Director, so metrics can be automatically gathered back into DGG from those data quality tools.
If a data quality problem goes beyond the single or small number “issue” state, then it could be remediated as an “initiative”, where it would be put into Data Governance Director and tracked as a separate initiative, with all of the visibility and accountability that goes with that, and the full life cycle of governance – definition, implementation, and metrics / enforcement – could be used to make sure the data quality issue was resolved.
Lovan Chetty did a brief demonstration of the product, showing a web-based user interface to author new initiatives and policies, manage scope and organizational parameters, and create a unified business model, including a data model, process model and systems model.
Mike Wheeler talked about Kalido’s lighthouse customer program for Data Governance Director, which consisted of cultivating about 16 companies and 3 consulting firms, including some large financial services providers and manufacturing companies, at different levels of data governance maturity, to provide input and feedback on their policies and data governance programs and practices.
A number of them will be speaking at tomorrow’s Kalido Connect virtual user conference.
One very large company had a “light going on” moment when using the product, when they realized that pulling the knowledge out of everyone’s head is the hardest part, and that lots of “tribal knowledge” is often never incorporated in the actual policies.
One of the largest banks in Mexico, Scotiabank, has already bought the product prior to its general availability, in order to streamline its data governance operations. And a Top-5 pharmaceutical company has also signed up as a customer.
After a short Q&A session, Kalido promised to let everyone get a closer look at the new product in their virtual user conference tomorrow. For more information, or to register, please go to http://bit.ly/kalido-register.
The screen shot below shows the product measuring and reporting data policy compliance status based on results captured from 3rd party monitoring tools.
Kalido Virtual User Conference
Hub Designs is pleased to be a sponsor of Kalido’s virtual user conference, Kalido Connect 2010, which is being held on Tuesday, December 7, 2010. Kalido is expecting more than 500 attendees, and will debut its new product, Kalido Data Governance Director, at the conference.
Also, Hub Designs is participating in an analyst briefing on and demonstration of Kalido Data Governance Director on Monday, December 6th. We’ll try to write a brief article here on the Hub Designs Blog later that day to give you our first impressions, with a longer article later, once we’ve had a chance to learn more about it at Kalido Connect.
This year’s Kalido Connect conference will focus on helping companies to manage data as a shared asset by supporting the business processes of data management. Kalido CEO Bill Hewitt will discuss how those business processes will affect the world economy over the next decade, including the impact on virtualization, mobile computing and the shrinking role of enterprise applications in the workplace.
Kalido Connect 2010 also features a record number of end user speakers, including participants from GE Treasury, Imperial Tobacco Group, Johnson & Johnson Ethicon Endo-Surgery, MarketStar, Navistar, Univision and Visa Europe.
A panel of end users will discuss how they have developed a more policy-centric approach to data governance and organized their programs in terms of organization, process and technology. They’ll discuss what “success” looks like, the barriers they encountered along the way (and how they overcame them), the role technology plays, and the value data governance is delivering to their organization.
Best in class content has been prepared by Kalido executives, consultants, customers and partners to address both technical and business audiences interested in data governance, data warehousing, business intelligence and master data management.
The virtual conference platform gives attendees the ability to network, attend exhibits, collaborate and learn without the time, expense and hassle of travel. 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, all at no cost.
Further details of the agenda can be found at: http://www.kalido.com/kalido-connect-agenda.htm, and registration is available at bit.ly/kalido-register.
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.
My Take on Oracle OpenWorld 2010
I’m flying home today from Oracle OpenWorld 2010, which I enjoyed enormously, as usual. Beyond the “old home week” aspect of it – seeing old friends, who for some reason I only seem to see at the Oracle Applications Users Group COLLABORATE conference in the spring or at Oracle OpenWorld in the fall – there was a tangible energy in the halls, the session rooms and the exhibit areas this year. And the Black Eyed Peas’ performance Wednesday night was a lot of fun as well.
Let me start out by saying that Hub Designs is vendor agnostic – we partner with all of the leading MDM vendors, including Oracle, Informatica / Siperian, Initiate Systems / IBM, SAP, D&B / Purisma, and Kalido, and are having partnership discussions with others like Orchestra Networks and Stibo Systems.
But my roots in the Oracle community go back to 1995, and my knowledge investment in Oracle’s CRM, ERP and MDM products is considerable. So I feel very comfortable at OpenWorld, and have about 250 Oracle people in my address book.
So although we are vendor agnostic, it’s only natural that we’ve developed a strong relationship with some partners, and are still working on developing that level of partnership with others. It’s hard to have equally deep partnerships with ten or so different companies.
My schedule prevented me from arriving until Tuesday, and when I did get there, I didn’t feel too well. But I did get to some sessions on Wednesday, and I was particularly impressed by “MDM Customer Panel: Implementation Challenges and Best Practices with the MDM Institute, Credit Suisse, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, Cricket Communications, and Wind River Systems”.
The session was a very practical Q&A, with different Oracle customers from different industries talking about their experiences, difficulties, and successes over the past four years or so. Several of them had implemented Oracle’s Customer Hub (formerly Siebel Universal Customer Master or UCM), with Wind River having implemented the Customer Data Hub (CDH) product.
The session also included Aaron Zornes, a prominent thought leader and Chief Research Officer of the MDM Institute. It was great to see him and to chat briefly after the session. If you’re able to, you should definitely register for the upcoming MDM and Data Governance Summit in New York City on October 3-5. I’ve been attending these for several years and always find them helpful in order to stay in touch with the pulse of what’s going on in the MDM and data governance space.
The session that I did with Bill Miller and Vanessa Hsu from Oracle was well attended, despite being in the very last time slot of the conference (Thursday at 3:00 pm). We had 101 people in the room, and even though we went a few minutes past the top of the hour, almost everyone stayed to the end. I talked about the need for change in today’s corporations, and the power of being an MDM evangelist in bringing innovation and change back to your company, as well as about the Top Ten best practices that I’ve observed over the past nine years of working in the fields of Data Governance and Master Data Management, across both the customer and product domains.
Bill Miller talked about how Oracle has applied these concepts to its own MDM needs, and its own six year journey from data quality chaos to finely tuned governance machine. It was great to hear, because I’ve known Bill for almost that entire time, and watched him go through some incredible projects, and grow into an important role as Global Solution Owner for Data Quality Management with Oracle’s IT function. He works closely with the business people (the Global Process Owners) in marketing, sales, finance, customer service, and so on. That virtual team is Oracle’s data governance board, and is responsible for some huge improvements in Oracle’s data quality picture over the last few years. Oracle implemented Oracle Customer Hub internally, and made some great process and cultural changes.
Vanessa Hsu is a Senior Product Strategy Manager at Oracle, and is responsible for a new product called Oracle Data Governance Manager. That product is an extension to Oracle Customer Hub, and provides a centralized administration tool for data stewards, giving easy access to key MDM operations, to increase data steward productivity and highlight enterprise-wide data quality metrics at a glance. It’s an important capability that Oracle will extend to its other hub products over its next release cycle.
The “feel on the street” in the MDM track at Oracle OpenWorld this year was that it was “full speed ahead” at Oracle. Gartner recognizes Oracle as one of the leaders in its “Magic Quadrant” for MDM, and deservedly so. There are a lot of smaller vendors with great technology too, but Oracle has done a lot to advance the state of the MDM art, and it was a pleasure to be in San Francisco this week to see their customers talk about their success. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next few years as Oracle introduces Fusion MDM to the market.
Kalido MDM and AB InBev
The Gartner MDM Summit in Las Vegas wraps up today, and this morning I caught a session by Kalido’s President and CEO Bill Hewitt and Jonathan Starkey, the Director of Business Intelligence at AB InBev North America.
AB InBev purchased Anheuser Busch in 2008 to become the largest brewer in the world, with over 116,000 employees worldwide and $39 billion in annual revenue.
AB InBev sees master data as a foundation element supporting supply chain management (SCM), enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM). All of that data winds up in a data warehouse and is used for reporting and planning. This shared focus on both reporting and analysis, and planning and forecasting makes up their philosophy on business intelligence.
This integration approach is being to bring together the Canadian and US operations gradually over time, but to integrate the SCM, ERP and CRM pillars of the US and Canadian operations of such a large enterprise realistically is going to take three to five years.
Turning more to the master data side of things, the first way AB InBev is using Kalido is to synchronize and cross-reference product and customer information across SCM and ERP systems. Secondly, they’re using Kalido to look for active exceptions across all of the various domains – between plants and products, between employees in HR and in ERP, between any two systems where master data is not in agreement. Thirdly, they’re using Kalido to kick off requests for new master data – new employees, new products, etc. that then get passed to various systems around the company.
The “real world” benefits from Kalido at AB InBev include procurement savings, strategic inventory optimization, overhead and budget tracking, people and resource movement tracking.
AB InBev went through a rigorous selection process, and selected Kalido in large part because of its ability to change rapidly as their business needs changed. Jonathan Starkey said ”Kalido does a very good job at managing change over time”.
I really enjoyed this session. Both Bill Hewitt and Jonathan Starkey did a great job, and it was enlightening to hear how a large global enterprise has addressed their MDM and business intelligence needs. Hub Designs recently became a Kalido partner, and one of our goals for this Gartner MDM Summit was to learn more about the company and their products, and this session definitely helped us do that.
For more information on Kalido, please visit www.kalido.com.
Day 2 of Gartner MDM Summit
digg this | 
del.icio.us | 
Reddit | 
Stumble It!
I started out yesterday attending the MDM Excellence Award Finalist presentations. Asian Paints, Johnson & Johnson Health Care Systems and State Street Bank presented, and each of them told an impressive story.
It was very significant that J&J and State Street are both committed Siperian MDM customers. The announcement of the winner will be at 4:00 pm today. I’ll be heading to the airport just after the announcement, but I’ll announce it here via my phone.
I also attended a VIP session where Gartner had DataFlux speaking about the benefits of exhibiting at the conference, and had Rick Woodand from State Street Bank and Ken from W.W. Grainger gave their perspectives as attendees.
I had a great briefing with Lorita Vannah and John Evans from Kalido, and walked away from it much more aware of Kalido’s product features and their approach to analytical MDM.
I spent some time in the Solutions Showcase, and was talking with Steve Meister and Ken Kotansky from AMB Predictive Data Management. We recently signed a Service Partnership agreement with AMB, and will be using their data profiling and data quality tools on client engagements going forward. I’ve been very impressed with their product’s capabilities and by how flexible and easy it is to work with the company.
Then, I met with Julie Langenkamp, the editor-in-chief of DM Review magazine, and her colleauge David Boone. I will be writing a monthly column in the print edition of DM Review, beginning with the January issue, and we brainstormed a number of other ideas on how we can work together more closely going forward.
Towards the end of the day, I hung out at the Siperian hospitality suite. I’ve been impressed for a while now with Nancy Ellickson, Siperian’s Senior Director of Corporate Marketing. The gathering was very well attended and a number of Siperian people were on hand, chatting with customers and potential customers. I had a great time and thought the understated, classy “California Picnic” theme was the perfect way to end the day.
I had dinner with a good friend from D&B/Purisma, catching up on things and chatting about the MDM market in general and how well Purisma in particular has been doing in 2008.
So look for the update after 4:15 or so today with the announcement of the MDM Excellence award winner!
