Master Data Management
Studies have shown that the average lifespan of hardware is about 3 years, the average lifespan of software is about 7-10 years, but the average lifespan of master data is 20 years or more. Master data is one of the precious assets of a corporation. Great effort and thereby cost goes into establishing and maintaining valid master data. Keeping master data up to date, safe, and clean is like maintaining a production line with care and diligence. The average corporation uses about 30 to 50% of their over all maintenance effort for Master data and about 10-20% of their operational effort for chasing errors originating from incorrect master data. It is thereby quite obvious that even small improvements by a couple of percentage points already yield significant ROI through improvements on data cleanliness, reliability and timely availability.
ICM America takes a 360º approach to MDM (Master Data Management). This means we are focusing on all areas of MDM. Not only the storage of master data, or only the address cleansing. The crucial areas are:
- Data Governance,
- Data Cleansing
- Data Storage
- Data Distribution
All the areas are significant components of MDM. Excelling in one but ignoring another will lead to failure of the over all approach. A concurrent, well balanced push in all four areas will assure expedient improvement of the master data supporting the business operations.
ICM America has developed an approach that supports and evaluates all four areas of master data management. ICM’s spider web scorecard provides an excellent tool to assess the proficiency of an organization in Master Data Management and it helps to develop achievable strategies for improvement and growth in all master data related areas.
Another important aspect of ICM’s master data approach is the categorization of master data into reference and process driving data. For all harmonization of Data that drive processes, the processes have to be harmonized first and then the data.
ICM has gathered significant expertise in MDM and provides a detailed White Paper that can be requested here. If you would like to discuses your own MDM needs, experience, or interest please contact us.
