Master Data Management in Practice: Achieving True Customer MDM

People

Customer MDM has a lot of layers of complexity and cross-functional involvement. As these layers become better understood and reveal the coordination needed to successfully drive data quality improvement initiatives, it will be the data stewards who will make the difference between poor and successful execution of the initiatives. For example, it should not come as a surprise if in the analysis of a significant data quality issue, the mitigation plan will require a number of orchestrated tasks from a number of committed resources from across business and IT functions. Often, the IT expertise and resources will already exist—although they may not be immediately available—but on the business side, the resources, skills, and the time commitment needed are often nonexistent or will only partially exist. Business functions or geographies that are most impacted by the problem may try to offer some resources on a short-term or part-time basis. In other situations, use of contractors may have to be considered, but often the cost associated with that has not been planned in anyone's budget—all of which makes it repeatedly difficult to get data management and quality improvement projects underway and fully completed.

Now, contrast that with a scenario where data steward roles have been considered and positioned across the business in key functional and regional areas, are sufficiently skilled and empowered, and can immediately help support the projects and priorities determined through ...