A proper master data management (MDM) governance can drive your business to new heights thanks to Synopps services and those of other companies on the market. We list the main advantages an organization obtains by taking to a targeted master data management strategy. Most of these benefits emerge even during a journey to the right MDM, not after completion of it, thus allowing to achieve quick wins.
Types Of Advantages MDM Brings
All benefits of master data management fall into two basic categories. Firstly, it prevents damage which the absence of MDM does to your organization. It protects your business from failures and mistakes. Secondly, MDM enhances an organization’s profitability by opening new lanes to growth. Down the line we will give you two separate lists — for each of these categories.
Protection From Falling Into Pitfalls Due To Poor Data
There are three types of negative events that happen because of poor-quality records. Having an MDM in place will not absolutely guarantee that it doesn’t occur as an MDM is a set of procedures, and any procedures are accomplished by people. And procedures can be outdated or wrong, after all. But master data management considerably reduces the chances of a failure happening as well as it lets you identify a point where and how you failed.
Outdated information leads to numerous failures which you can easily imagine in any person’s private life who uses a wrong tourist guidebook, for example. The wrong address of a customer who had recently moved to another city means that a parcel will be delivered with a delay if the delivery will occur at all. The ground reason for this negative event is that a lack of MDM procedures leads to chaotic capture and storage of information, if even there is a procedure on updating data it’s impossible to control that information is renewed everywhere — just because you don’t know where and which information exists.
Inconsistent data leads to mishaps, misunderstandings, and mistakes. Well, things can be restored to some extent when your customer’s name is written as James despite the fact that he’s John. More severe consequences happen when controversial data is contained in a report submitted to a regulator. While page 13th says that a supplier of raw materials was firm A, page 45th says it was the firm G. Where does this difference come from? The page 13’s data was prepared by a production department, while the latter one by a financial services department. The data was not synchronized, so the regulator — annoyed and bewildered — will slap a fine on a company.
Numerous duplicates are not dangerous in themselves. Having the same records across various domains are costly, but don’t cause big problems, except financial loss which could have been avoided. But this in theory. In practice, it bites, and sometimes painfully. The both examples mentioned above arise from a situation when items on the same subject are contained in different corporate units. Even with synchronization rules in place, which is a very seldom case without master data management, the likelihood of mistakes leading to outdated information and inconsistencies increases. Let alone the excessive expenses we have mentioned.
Enhancing Profits With Master Data Management
The other half of the benefits of a cohesive MDM strategy is what you can do to improve overall profitability. It’s important to keep in mind that there is a difference between a set of rules to handle data and a strategy. The former prevents damage like hand washing before a meal. The latter is a proactive vision of what you can extract from your consolidated and cleansed data to find new lanes to earnings growth. It’s like going to the gym. In the first case, you don’t get ill, in the second you become stronger and healthier.
Automation is not just a trend, it’s a necessity essential for success. But you cannot automate what you don’t know. Open any book on digitalization and the first pages will tell you that you must bring your data and business process in order before getting to robots and algorithms. Otherwise, chaos in your business will be amplified against being eliminated.
Data science is the next stage of the art of dealing with information after automation. When you embed smart devices into routine operations and get robots and other sophisticated technologies to do some work that had previously been done by human beings, you start to pile a lot of data. We mean clean and accurate data. That’s a treasury if you know how to extract diamonds from these myriads of bytes. This requires both knowledge and skills, but first and foremost you need to make data science a part of your MDM strategy to get useful insights.
Getting to know your business. That’s a common benefit that unites the previous two, but is not confined to them. Well, imagine you bought a high-quality guide to your company and now you know which and how information flows throughout your organization. At Synopps, we call it “a good sleep”, and that’s an advantage that could have far reaching positive consequences.