Tag Archives: MDM

What is Multi-Domain MDM?

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Multi-domain Master Data Management is usually perceived as the union of Customer MDM, Supplier MDM and Product MDM. It is. And it is much more than that.

Customer MDM is typically about federating the accounts receivable in the ERP system(s) and the direct and prospective accounts in the CRM system(s). Golden records are formed through deduplication of multiple representations of the same real-world entity.

Supplier (or vendor) MDM is typically about federating the accounts payable in the ERP system(s) and the existing and prospective accounts in the SRM system(s). A main focus is on the golden records and the company family tree they are in.

Product MDM has a buy-side and a sell-side.

On the buy-side MDM is taking care of trading data for products to resell, in manufacturing environments also the trading data for raw materials and in some cases also for parts to be used in Maintenance, Repair and Operation (MRO). The additional long tail of product specifications may in resell scenarios be onboarded in an embedded/supplementary Product Information Management (PIM) solution.

On the sell-side the trading data are handled for resell products and in manufacturing environments the finished products. The additional long tail of product specifications may be handled in an embedded/supplementary Product Information Management (PIM) solution.

What is multidomain MDM

Multidomain MDM does this in a single solution / suite of solutions. And much more as for example:

  • Supplier contacts can be handled in a generic party master data structure.
  • Customer contacts can be handled in a generic party master data structure
  • Besides the direct accounts in CRM the indirect accounts and contacts can in the party master data structure too. Examples of such parties are:
    • Influencers in the form of heath care professionals in life science.
    • Influencers in the form of architects and other construction professionals in building material manufacturing.
    • End consumers in many supply chain B2B2C scenarios.
  • Employee records can be handled in a generic party master data structure. The roles of sales representatives and their relation to customers, influencers, product hierarchies and location hierarchies can be handled as well as purchase responsibles and their relation to suppliers, influencers, product hierarchies and location hierarchies can be handled.
  • The relation between suppliers and product hierarchies and location hierarchies cand be handled.
  • The relation between customers and end consumers and the product hierarchies and location hierarchies can be handled.
  • Inbound product information feeds from suppliers can be organized and optimized through Product Data Syndication (PDS) solutions.
  • The relation between customer preferences and product information can be handled in Product eXperience Management (PXM) solutions.
  • Outbound product information feeds to resellers can be organized and optimized through Product Data Syndication (PDS) solutions.

This site has a list of the most innovative solutions that can either be your multi-domain solution or supplement other solutions as a best-of-breed component. Check the list here.

Analyst MDM / PIM / DQM Solution Reports Update Mid 2020

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Analyst firms occasionally publish market reports with a generic solution overview for Master Data Management (MDM), Product Information Management (PIM) and Data Quality Management (DQM).

Here is an overview of the latest major reports:

Analyst Rankings

The next expected reports include:

  • Information Difference yearly MDM landscape probably later this month
  • Gartner Data Quality Tool Magic Quadrant scheduled for 31st July

PS: You can check out many of the included solutions on This Disruptive MDM / PIM / DQM List.

PPS: You can get a free ranking that also include the rising stars on the solution market and is based on your context, scope and requirements here.

Party MDM

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The Master Data Management (MDM) market has traditionally been divided into Customer MDM and Product MDM – with Vendor/Supplier MDM as a rarer third option.

However, from being an academic notion we see more and more implementations where the MDM solution is build as a Party MDM solution, where the party entity encompass customer, vendor/supplier, other business partners, internal business units and any other party entity that matters to the sell, buy and make side of the enterprise.

Party MDM

The party MDM concept will also encompass the employees (and contractors) in the business units – which can be seen as Human Resource MDM – as well as the contacts at B2B customers, vendors/suppliers and other business partners.

There are many drivers for building this model.

One example is that many enterprises, especially large corporations, has an intersection of customers and vendors/suppliers. This case was examined in the post How Bosch is Aiming for Unified Partner Master Data Management.

Then there is the good old question: “What is a customer?”. In many business scenarios there are more than direct customers that matters in marketing and selling. In manufacturing, including life science, there are B2B2C chains. In these and other industries there are influencers that matters. In life science that is healthcare professionals. In building materials that is for example architects and other construction professionals.

In banking the term counterparty is used to cover both direct customers and other parties that are referred to in the service delivery. In education there are teachers and students. In public administration there are citizens.

Practically all organizations have more parties than customers and vendors/suppliers involved in the operating model and therefore their descriptions must sooner or later be handled as master data in a unified Party MDM model. This will underpin the digital transformation that is on the agenda in every organization these days.

Popular Entries on The Resource List

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This site has a list of white papers, ebooks, reports and webinars from solution and service providers.

The aim is to give inspiration for organizations having the quest to implement or upgrade their Master Data Management (MDM), Product Information Management (PIM) and/or Data Quality Management (DQM) capability.

The list has now been online in a month and it is time to look at which entries that until now have been the most popular in terms of click through. These are:

ROI of MDM, PIM and DQM

Exploring The ROI of PIM and MDMHave you ever wondered how to effectively evaluate the return on investment (ROI) of a Product Information Management (PIM) and Master Data Management (MDM) implementation? Then, take a look at some real-life examples. Download the Enterworks ebook on Exploring The ROI of PIM and MDM.

MDM, PIM and DQM market overview

The State of Product Information Management 2020Get an overview of why PIM solutions are implemented in more and more organizations, which capabilities a 2020 PIM solution needs to cover, where the market is heading and who the PIM vendors in the market are and how this affect your purchase of PIM. Download the Dynamicweb PIM white paper The State of Product Information Management 2020. 

MDM, PIM and DQM implementation

virtual-conference-webcast-revConferences cancelled? Stuck working from home? Bring the conferences to you with an virtual MDM conference. Don’t miss this must see 6 week live webcast series and hear what other companies are doing in the world of MDM along with best practices and workshops by industry experts.. Register for this Enterworks webcast series at the Everything Master Data Management (MDM) Virtual Conference.

Extended MDM

Intelligent Data Hub - Taking MDM to the Next LevelMDM solutions have been instrumental in solving core data quality issues in a traditional way, focusing primarily on simple master data entities such as customer or product. Organizations now face new challenges with broader and deeper data requirements to succeed in their digital transformation. Help your organization through a successful digital transformation while taking your MDM initiative to the next level. Download the Semarchy white paper Intelligent Data Hub – Taking MDM to the Next Level.

Data Quality

4 Keys to Unlocking Data Quality with MDMBusinesses today face a rapidly growing mountain of content and data. Mastering this content can unlock a whole new level of Business Intelligence for your organization and impact a range of data analytics. It’s also crucial for operational excellence and digital transformation. Download the 1WorldSync and Enterworks ebook on 4 Keys to Unlocking Data Quality with MDM.

Next To Come

More resources from solution and service vendors are on the way. Additionally, there will also be a Case Story List with success stories from various industries. Stay tuned.

If you have comments, suggestions and/or entries to be posted (yes, there is a very modest fee), then get in touch here:

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Deduplication and Master Data Management

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A core intersection between Data Quality Management (DQM) and Master Data Management (MDM) is deduplication. The process here will basically involve:

  • Match master data records across the enterprise application landscape, where these records describe the same real-world entity most frequently being a person, organization, product or asset.
  • Link the master data records in the best fit / achievable way, for example as a golden record.
  • Apply the master data records / golden record to a hierarchy.

Data Matching

The classic data matching quest is to identify data records that refer to the same person being an existing customer and/or prospective customer. The first solutions for doing that emerged more than 40 years ago. Since then the more difficult task of identifying the same organization being a customer, prospective customer, vendor/supplier or other business partner has been implemented while also solutions for identifying products as being the same have been deployed.

Besides using data matching to detect internal duplicates within an enterprise, data matching has also been used to match against external registries. Doing this serves as a mean to enrich internal records which also helps in identifying internal duplicates.

Master Data Survivorship

When two or more data records have been confirmed as duplicates there are various ways to deal with the result.

In the registry MDM style, you will only store the IDs between the linked records so the linkage can be used for specific operational and analytic purposes.

Further, there are more advanced ways of using the linkage as described in the post Three Master Data Survivorship Approaches.

Master Data Survivorship Approaches

One relatively simple approach is to choose the best fit record as the survivor in the MDM hub and then keep the IDs of the MDM purged records as a link back to the sourced application records.

The probably most used approach is to form a golden record from the best fit data elements, store this compiled record in the MDM hub and keep the IDs of the linked records from the sourced applications.

A third way is to keep the sourced records in the MDM hub and on the fly compile a golden view for a given purpose.

Hierarchy Management

When you inspect records identified as a duplicate candidate, you will often have to decide if they describe the same real-world entity or if they describe two real-world entities belonging to the same hierarchy.

Instead of throwing away the latter result, this link can be stored in the MDM hub as well as a relation in a hierarchy (or graph) and thus support a broader range of operational and analytic purposes.

The main hierarchies in play here are described in the post Are These Familiar Hierarchies in Your MDM / PIM / DQM Solution?

Family consumer citizenWith persons in private roles a classic challenge is to distinguish between the individual person, a household with a shared economy and people who happen to live at the same postal address. The location hierarchy plays a role in solving this case. This quest includes having precise addresses when identifying units in large buildings and knowing the kind of building. The probability of two John Smith records being the same person differs if it is a single-family house address or the address of a nursing home.

Family companyOrganizations can belong to a company family tree. A basic representation for example used in the Dun & Bradstreet Worldbase is having branches at a postal address. These branches belong a legal entity with a headquarter at a given postal address, where there may be other individual branches too. Each legal entity in an enterprise may have a national ultimate mother. In multinational enterprises, there is a global ultimate mother. Public organizations have similar often very complex trees.

Product hierachyProducts are also formed in hierarchies. The challenge is to identify if a given product record points to a certain level in the bottom part of a given product hierarchy. Products can have variants in size, colour and more. A product can be packed in different ways. The most prominent product identifier is the Global Trade Identification Number (GTIN) which occur in various representations as for example the Universal Product Code (UPC) popular in Orth America and European (now International) Article Number (EAN) popular in Europe. These identifiers are applied by each producer at the product packing variant level.

Solutions Available

When looking for a solution to support you in this conundrum the best fit for you may be a best-of-breed Data Quality Management (DQM) tool and/or a capable Master Data Management (MDM) platform.

This list has the most innovative candidates here.