As organizations determine whether or not to make the investment in Master Data Management (MDM), concerns around being an early adopter and the “relative” maturity of respective MDM offerings are to be expected. Suitability and fit of the correct architecture and applicability to the domain and industry of the organization making the decision leads a long list of review criteria during the evaluation process of an MDM platform.
Fortunately many of the latest analyst reports, such as the Gartner Customer MDM Quadrant 2008 and Forrester CDI Wave 2008, provide a good review of vendors and their relative strengths and weaknesses as it pertains to fundamental MDM capabilities. Features such as data cleansing, data deduplication, Hierarchy management, security, data model and management to name a few form the basis of core functionality that have been identified as being critical to the success of deploying MDM solutions. While features and functions are important, the reality is that many of the early and ultimately successful MDM deployments suffered through trial and error, before eventually settling on the correct architecture, designs and business processes for their needs.
As MDM experiences evolve, these best practices and key artifacts of knowledge are often documented and presented at industry forums for the benefit of others who are interested in developing their own MDM initiatives. General computer software productivity preaches reuse as an approach to solving commonly-occurring software design problems. The concept of reuse has been well documented and leveraged in all aspects of software development and is commonly accepted as a means of delivering high quality software. In the same way, shouldn’t the notion of pre-built Solution Components be used to illuminate the way to MDM solution success? My sense is that as MDM becomes more widely adopted; Solution components will eventually be readily available, offered for sale in an Exchange/Marketplace type environment or for general sharing and collaboration.
As the old adage goes, don’t reinvent the (MDM) wheel!
Originally posted on the Siperian Blog at http://siperian.typepad.com/siperian_blog/2009/03/heres-an-mdm-wheel-dont-reinvent-it.html