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by Stephanie Neil, MA Editorial Staff Posted on Tuesday, May 22, 2007 4:19:32 PM   | Abstract: | New initiatives around the concept of master data management are helping manufacturers create one version of the truth inside and outside the organization. |
Business is confusing. Operating in a global market, where acquisitions and a high mix of suppliers are the status quo, can create an ocean of information that can throw even the best-managed company into a tailspin. Take Airgas Inc., a Pennsylvania-based distributor of industrial, medical, and specialty gases that has completed over 300 acquisitions and operates through 13 different subsidiaries around the world. As the company built out its business, it needed a way to manage the influx of new information coursing through its IT infrastructure. Each business unit, for instance, had its own way of formatting and describing products and part numbers. That meant that when customers — which range from local gas stations to Fortune 100 pharmaceutical companies — tried to order the same product in a different part of the world, they encountered inconsistent descriptions and varying part numbers. "We have all sorts of data sets out there, and we needed a single repository that would allow us to appear as if we are one company to the customer," says Steve Max, director of e-business marketing at Airgas. More Than Just Location The kind of repository Max alludes to often starts with a database. But companies have learned that simply throwing data into a single system doesn't solve the more pressing problem of reconciling that information so that there is a single version of the truth. In light of that, companies are now striving to create logical links among the disparate data that populates not just a database, but a variety of applications across the enterprise, and sometimes even down to the plant level. The concept has evolved into what industry observers call master data management (MDM). But what is MDM? Is it a database? Middleware? Integration technology? The answer is that it's all of that, and much more. According to the Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI), MDM is the practice of acquiring, improving, and sharing master data — which is the reference data that defines a business entity. In an MDM survey that TDWI conducted via the Internet last year, 83% of the 741 respondents revealed that their organization has suffered as a result of having poor master data. The problems range from inaccurate data to internal arguments over which data is relevant to bad decisions based on incorrect data. Only about 20% of these companies have invested in a stand-alone MDM solution, but those that have started down the path are starting to see tangible results. "MDM is more than just technology. It is about the entire process around how you manage your corporate data," says Sunil Gupta, director of solution marketing at SAP. "The data is really the crown jewels of your business, and it covers areas such as data strategy — how you manage it and how you define it conceptually." To achieve a harmonized view of data, MDM requires that a governance strategy be built into the information flow so that a product SKU in one system is represented the same way in a separate system that might otherwise have listed it differently. Or, that a customer can be identified between the CRM system and the accounting system regardless of whether he is entered as "Joe Smith" or "Joseph Smith." For help executing on an MDM initiative, companies can turn to their ERP companies, like SAP or Oracle Corp. There are also integration and data management specialists that manufacturers can team up with, including DataFlux, NetManage Inc., and Informatica Corp., to name a few. And emerging data management services from companies like ByteManagers Inc., which Airgas is using to help make sense of its existing data, can offload the burden of fixing flawed data. Page : 1 2 3 ... NEXT |