There is a tendency on the Master Data Management (MDM) market that solutions providers aim to deliver an extended MDM platform to underpin customer experience efforts. Such a platform will not only handle traditional master data, but also reference data, big data (as data lakes) either directly or by linking to the data in there as well as linking to transactions.

The recent acquisition of AllSight by Informatica is an example hereof.

In this context traditional MDM will, supplemented with Reference Data Management (RDM), enable the handling of:

• Customer, supplier and product identity
• Customer, supplier and product hierarchies
• Customer, supplier and product locations

Additionally, the data lake concept can be used for:

• Including customer footprint on websites
• Including customer footprint in social media
• Syndicating product data from/to trading partners

What is your view: Should MDM solution providers stick to traditional master data or should they strive to encompass other kinds of data too?