Tag Archives: MDM

Master Data Workflow Management

Posted on by
3

Workflow management has become a core requirement for organizations on the look for a Master Data Management (MDM) and/or Product Data Management (PIM) solution.

In the early days of MDM solutions, these applications were often integrated with a third-party workflow engine, but today it has become most common that the workflow management capability is built-in and comes as a – sometimes extra charged – native part of the solution.

The approval process for onboarding master data entities is the most frequent use case for building a master data workflow. However, we increasingly see other use cases addressed, not at least data quality checks (which also supports the approval process).

For party master data (customer and other roles) some examples of workflow elements are:

For product master data some examples are:

  • Completeness check for various stages (sellable, catalogue ready, online ready)
  • Compliance check and approval
  • Pricing approval

Below are a few examples on how MDM/PIM vendors promote and explain their workflow offering:

Master Data Workflow Management

The examples are taken from the Contentserv MDM, Dynamicweb PIM, Reltio workflow & collaboration and Semarchy xDM pages.

It Takes Less than 15 Million USD to be on This List

Posted on by
Reply

The Gartner Magic Quadrant for Master Data Management Solutions is probably the most referenced vendor ranking service in the MDM space. You can see which vendors that are included in the quadrant – and their yearly revenue as estimated by Gartner – in the post MDM Vendor Revenues According to Gartner.

The entrance ticket for vendors in the quadrant is a yearly MDM related software (license and maintenance) revenue of minimum 15 Million USD.

This list (The Disruptive MDM/PIM List) does not require any minimum revenue for vendors to register their solution. Some of the already listed solutions are also included in the Gartner MDM Magic Quadrant and some are not (yet).

For organizations on the look for an MDM and/or PIM solution this means that there is a choice of considering both larger and established disruptive solutions and considering newer and specialized solutions for a longlist and a shortlist within a tool selection activity.

These are the solutions currently on the list:

Specialized or Gartnerish

Learn more about these solutions on the list.

Digital Transformation Success Rely on MDM / PIM Success

Posted on by
Reply

It is hard to find an organization who do not want to be on the digital transformation wagon today. But how can you ensure that your digital transformation journey will be a success? One of the elements in making sure that this data driven process will be a success will be to have a solid foundation of Master Data Management (MDM) including Product Information Management (PIM).

The core concepts here are:

  • Providing a 360-degree view of master data entities: Engaging with your customers across a range of digital platforms is a core part of any digital transformation. Having a 360-degree view of your customer has never been more important, and that starts with well-organized and maintained customer master data. The same is true for supplier master data and other party master data. 360-degree view of locations is equally important. The same goes for products and assets as pondered in post Golden Records in Multidomain MDM.
  • Enabling happy self-service scenarios: Customer data are gathered from many sources and digital self-registration is becoming the most common used method. The self-service theme has also emerged in handling supplier master data as self-service based supplier portals have become common as the place where supplier/vendor master data is captured and maintained. Interacting with your trading partners on digital platforms and having the most complete product information in front of your customers in self-service online selling scenarios requires a solid foundation for product master data and Product experience Management (PxM).
  • Underpinning the best customer experience: Customer experience (CX) and MDM must go hand in hand. Both themes involve multiple business units and digital environments within your enterprise and in the wider business ecosystem, where your enterprise operates. Master data is the glue that brings the data you hold about your customers together as well as the glue that combines this with the data you share about your product offering.
  • Encompassing Internet of Things (IoT): Smart devices that produces big data can be used to gain much more insight about parties (in customer and other roles), products, locations and the things themselves. You can only do that effectively by relating IoT and MDM.

Digital Transformation Success

The Links Between MDM, PIM and Data Monetization

Posted on by
Reply

Data monetization is about harvesting direct financial results from having access to data that is stored, maintained, categorized and made accessible in an optimal manner. Traditionally data management & analytics has contributed indirectly to financial outcome by aiming at keeping data fit for purpose in the various business processes that produced value to the business. Today the best performers are using data much more directly to create new services and business models.

There are three ways of exploiting data monetization:

  • Selling data: This is something that have been known to the data management world for years. Notable examples are the likes of Dun & Bradstreet who is selling business directory data. Another example is postal services around the world selling their address directories. This is the kind of data we know as third party data.
  • Wrapping data around products: If you have a product – or a service – you can add tremendous value to these products and services and make them more sellable by wrapping data, potentially including third party data, around those products and services. These data will thus become second party at trading partners.
  • Advanced analytics and decision making: You can combine third party data, second party data and first party data (your own data) in order to make advanced analytics and fast operational decision making in order to sell more, reduce costs and mitigate risks.

Data Monetization MDM PIM

Master Data Management (MDM) is the core foundation for ensuring the multipurpose data quality of the data you sell, purchase from a third-party provider, push to trading partners, pull from trading partners and use in analytics and decision making. Product Information Management (PIM) is crucial when wrapping data around products and Product Data Syndication is essential when linking the data between trading partners.

On this site there is a list of forward-looking MDM, PIM and Product Data Syndication vendors who can enable your data monetization efforts. Find the list here.

Multidomain MDM and the Next Big MDM Thing

Posted on by
Reply

Mutidomain MDM has been a trend in the Master Data Mamagement world for some years as told in the post Golden Records in Multidomain MDM.

Gartner, the analyst, firm, says in the latest MDM Magic Quadrant that “Several patterns have emerged whereby “customer,” “party,” “product” or “thing” master data have become the highest priority for a large number of organizations. The MDM solution should be capable of supporting all domains that are “in scope” for an MDM program, through either client-driven or prepackaged data model styles.”

Gartner has also together with the included vendors estimated the number of multidomain licenses sold on the market as seen in the post Counting MDM Licenses.

On the Hype Cycle for Information Management Gartner sees Multidomain MDM as sliding into the through of disillusionment while the customer and product single domains are at the slope of enlightenment.

Multidomain MDM Hype

Multiple domains are in the Gartner world one of several vectors of MDM. Other vectors are industries, usage scenarios (operational vs analytical), organizational structures (central vs local) and implementation styles (registry, consolidation, coexistence and centralized).

Another MDM theme that is trailing multidomain is multienterprise MDM – aka business ecosystem wide MDM.

Forrester, the other analyst firm, puts it this way in their latest MDM Wave: “As first-generation MDM technologies become outdated and less effective, improved second generation and third-generation features will dictate which providers lead the pack. Vendors that can provide internet-of-things (IoT) capabilities, ecosystem capabilities, and data context position themselves to successfully deliver added business value to their customers.”

What do you think: Will multidomain MDM prevail? Either way, what will be the next big thing(s)?