Master data management is one of many tools that have sprung to life in today’s digital marketplace. Unfortunately, the name sounds too sophisticated that most small business owners simply avoid it altogether. Doing so might save you the hassle of learning about it, but you might also be missing out on an exciting and beneficial new tool that can give you the competitive edge against competitors. Get your feet wet with these five facts about what is Master Data Management software and why you need it for your business.
Provides Centralized Referencing
MDM pertains to a technique used to structure and manage the critical data sets of a business to offer a single centralized location for future access and referencing. Reference data may be added to the master data to establish a set of allowed values. Moreover, the mastered data also includes any analytical information that can aid in the decision-making process. As a business grows, it collects more information, whether it’s financial transactions and receipts or customer account details and preferences. With such a large and specific data set maintained by every team or department, it’s not long before your business runs into redundancies. By using Master Data Management software, you can maintain data in one centralized repository with complete coherence.
Simplifies Development
Master data management software removes the necessity to connect to various data sources as well as the need to filter and modify data. This also results in lowering the strain on your source systems that would transpire if applications and systems were created directly against them. In addition, introducing new applications and processes against your MDM separates downstream programs from the source systems that ultimately minimize efforts and resources consumed from future development, adoption, and implementation of new systems.
Improve Efficiency of Storing and Using Data
Master data management was designed to usher in a more systematic means of integrating data that guarantees consistent use and reuse. Information, specifically customer-related data, is a major concern that is addressed by MDM. As big data architecture finds broader applications, the data sets in business settings expand carelessly in structure. Attached to them are the classic signs of subpar data management including duplications and redundancies, missing data fields, etc. By developing a reliable data dictionary, Master Data Management software can address these common areas of data storage inefficiency.
Handles Cleaning and Combining of Business Data
A common query when talking about what is Master Data Management is “Can the data warehouses that the software interacts with handle the cleaning and combining of data?” The short and simple answer is that it can. An MDM software can respond to queries from data warehouses and customers, but also interact with other tools simultaneously.
How Master Data is Transferred
There are various means in which master data may be collated and issued to other networks that require it, one of which is data consolidation. This pertains to the process of catching master data from various sources and consolidating them into a single location to be copied to other destination networks. There is also data federation, which is a popular programming technique that allows businesses to glue together data from more than one source in a remote database. Last but not least, you have data propagation, which refers to the process of replicating master data from one repository to another, usually through legacy platforms.
Final Thoughts
In the real world, data is changing every second of the day. Mergers and acquisitions are happening, recalls and corrections are being made to flawed records, and marketing departments are changing product names or launching new services. With so much information to digest, small businesses are seemingly on the losing side in the fight for harmonious and efficient data storage and management. Level the playing field by using Master Data Management to maintain and manipulate your data sets in one easy-to-use, flexible, and cost-efficient platform.