Master Data Management in Practice: Achieving True Customer MDM

Initiating a Customer Data Governance Model

While you can initiate data governance without having an MDM practice, you can't have an effective MDM practice without data governance. Data governance is the glue in MDM. Without it, MDM will not be a cohesive sustainable practice. In a 2010 study conducted by The Information Difference,¹ 88 percent of the respondents felt that implementing data governance either prior to or together with MDM and data quality is critical to the success of an MDM initiative.

Defining and planning a Customer Data Governance (CDG) model should start with an initial assessment and the groundwork necessary to drive a sound charter and implementation proposal for your governance model. The assessment and proposal should predominantly be a business-driven initiative with sponsorship at the vice president (VP) level to ensure strong commitment and advocacy exists for establishing data governance. Within the sponsoring organization, there should be an existing director or senior manager appointed by the VP to lead the tactical aspects of the initiative. The sponsoring VP along with this tactical leader will be the driving force needed to get the data governance ball rolling.

Involvement of a consultant in the planning phase of your governance initiative can also be a major benefit. A consultant with a good track record in the MDM and data governance space can greatly assist in best practice evaluations, initial process or data quality assessments, gathering ...