Ten Mistakes to Avoid When Growing Your MDM Program
TDWI Member Exclusive
May 11, 2015
By Philip Russom
The mistakes of master data management (MDM) are mostly about limiting MDM programs and solutions in their early phases. Once limited, MDM faces serious challenges when it comes time to mature into greater size or more sophisticated functionality.
Just because you start small doesn’t mean you should think small. A plan followed by successful organizations allows MDM to start small by focusing on one data domain (typically customer data), one department, or one application (typically CRM, ERP, or BI), with a small set of functionality (aggregating and improving reference data in batch). However, such a plan insists that each solution grow into more domains, departments, and applications, as well as into more advanced functions. Although some MDM solutions begin as silos, the plan insists that these be consolidated or integrated at the appropriate moment in their maturation.
Regardless of how the plan originates or evolves, you need a long-term strategy, documented in a governable plan, if MDM is to mature into rich functionality applied over much of your enterprise. This TDWI Ten Mistakes to Avoid booklet drills into the details of such plans.
NOTE: This report assumes the reader is familiar with MDM. Readers who are not should read the TDWI Best Practices Report Next-Generation Master Data Management, available at tdwi.org/bpreports.