IBM Multiform Master Data Management: The Evolution of MDM Applications

Delivering information you can trust June 2007
IBM Multiform Master Data
Management: The evolution of
MDM applications Delivering information you can trust Page 2
Companies across many industries face business challenges that affect their Contents master data-the high-value, business-critical information about customers, suppliers, products and accounts-and the ability of IT to deliver on the 2 Traditional approaches to master requirements of a dynamic business. This critical business information is data management replicated and fragmented across business units, geographic branches and 2 The enterprise application
applications. Enterprises now recognize that these symptoms indicate a lack of 4 The data warehouse
effective and complete management of master data. 5 Integration middleware
6 The problem with traditional
Since companies began shifting from a mainframe-based architecture to a approaches more flexible distributed architecture, IT departments have attempted to 7 The evolution of master data gain control over this master data using a variety of methods. But few have management solutions demonstrated true success due to their reliance on existing, but repurposed, 1 0 IBM Multiform Master Data systems and applications. Management 10 The value of IBM Multiform Master Traditional approaches to master data management Data Management The enterprise application 1 3 Alternatives to multiform MDM Traditional approaches to master data include the use of existing enterprise 13 Index MDM and reference MDM applications, data warehouses and even middleware. Some organizations 14 Immature MDM approaches approach the master data issue by leveraging dominant and seemingly domain- 15 Uniform MDM centric applications, such as a customer relationship management (CRM) 16 Evolutionary chasms associated application for the customer domain or an enterprise resource planning (ERP) with multiform MDM alternatives application for the product domain. However, CRM and ERP, among other 16 Data-centric versus function­ enterprise applications, have been designed and implemented to automate centric approaches specific business processes such as customer on-boarding, procure-to-pay and 18 Uniform versus multiform MDM order-to-cash-not to manage data across these processes. The result is that a applications specific data domain, such as customer or product, may actually reside within 2 0 Overcoming evolutionary chasms multiple processes, and therefore multiple applications. with IBM Multiform MDM 20 Scalability
21 Total cost of ownership
21 Flexibility
22 Time and risk
22 IBM Multiform MDM: The true strategic MDM solution Delivering information you can trust Page 3
In this scenario using application masters, it is difficult to determine which iteration of customer, product or account-if any-is complete and correct (see Figure 1). Additional complexity occurs as organizations attempt to maintain the correct copy of the data, and identify and understand all of the systems that can update a particular domain, those that consume portions of the updates, and the frequency rate at which this consumption occurs. It quickly becomes apparent to organizations that have undergone such a project that the process-automating application cannot also manage data across the enterprise.
Figure 1: Serving business processes without master data management User interface layer
Identify Identify and customer Open return Credit Create billing Composite and return account product check profile application/ profile detail business process
Customer Customer Product Customer Customer Account Product No one system is the customer, Impossible to virtually assemble product or account master a complete profile
Customer Customer Customer Customer Customer Product Account Product Product Source systems Account Account system Account system Billing Billing Credit bureau LOB 1 LOB 2 system 1 system 2 Delivering information you can trust Page 4
The data warehouse Alternately, some enterprise initiatives have attempted to repurpose new or existing data warehouses to serve as a master data repository. As data warehouses aggregate enterprise information, the warehouse is often viewed as a starting point for companies attempting ... [download for more]