What is Master Data Management?

Everything you need to know about master data management and how it brings data together to create a single, accurate record of the truth across the enterprise.

Master data management fuels your
business with better data.

Master data management (MDM) is the core process used to manage, centralize, organize, categorize, localize, synchronize and enrich master data according to the business rules of the sales, marketing and operational strategies of your company.

Master data can take the form of product, customer, supplier, location and asset information, in addition to any information sources that drive your business.

The efficient management of master data in a central repository gives you a single authoritative view of information and eliminates costly inefficiencies caused by data silos.

It supports your business initiatives through identification, linking and syndication of information across products, customers, stores/locations, employees, suppliers, digital assets and more.

Master your data using a MDM platform to support
your enterprise data strategy.

What Is Master Data Management and Why You Need It Discover the value of master data management to deliver better business outcomes. Get the White Paper

The Complete A-Z of Master Data Management In this ebook, we give you an overview and a definition of the most common MDM terms and abbreviations. Get the Ebook

Building the Business Case Start building your own success story about how MDM will help create value in your organization. This ebook is the ultimate guide to identify value and promote MDM to the organization. Get the Ebook

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Master data management overcomes three primary challenges that you may be facing today.

Data silos and multiple versions of your data.

Data errors that result from manual entry and maintenance.

Dated timeliness, including not knowing which elements of your data you can trust.

Master data management benefits.

MDM connects, masters and shares data from all your systems, including ERP, CRM, ecommerce and more. It allows you to create a 360° view of your information. You’ll learn everything from the buying history of your customers to product availability and supplier interaction.

MDM allows you to:

Focus your product, service and business efforts on the activities that increase sales.
Deliver a highly personal service and engagement experience.
De-prioritize unprofitable activities that drain time and resources.

Underpinning these benefits, MDM enables you to:

Eliminate silos

of master data that exist in different departments or business

Improve operational efficiency

by aligning organizational and operational data

Increase collaboration

between internal and external groups

Enhance the customer experience

by using insights to drive business performance

Save resources

by automating and streamlining essential data processes

Reduce risks

associated with regulatory compliance such as GDPR

How to approach master data management

Whether you’re considering adopting an MDM solution, you’re implementing but don’t know where to start or if you have some MDM capabilities but feel that they need to be updated, these three steps will help you get started.

Video A world without MDM

A world without MDM is a place where the things your customers order are not always what they get, where you’re often bombarded with the same offer multiple times and where sometimes there’s a mix up with your products.

video about A World without Master Data Management-1

Master data management and the cost of poor quality data

As your business grows, your IT landscape becomes more complicated. Acquisitions, expansion into new markets and new countries can result in your business running multiple systems, applications and technologies. This fragmented environment creates significant data management difficulties.

MDM provides an organizing approach to data management and increases the value of your analytics and the quality of your data. It connects information, people and processes to help you meet business objectives and improves the quality of data.

bad data solved with master data management

What is the role of master data management?

The role of master data management is to remove silos and manage, share and correct your data from one place. The results enable you to:

Launch products up to 4X faster

Reduce supply chain complexity

Reduce refunds and customer service queries

See all your customer information from every source at a glance

Slash your marketing costs by up to 50%

Improve operational efficiency

Target customers with more effective marketing and sales promotions

Free up resources to focus on adding more value in other areas

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Harness the power of data transparency and start making better business decisions using trusted data. Read Transforming Business with Master Data Management For Dummies and learn about using MDM to ensure data is accurate, updated and shareable across the enterprise value chain.

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Transforming Business with Master Data Management For Dummies

How to Create a Solid RFP for MDM to underpin your enterprise data strategy

The process of identifying and purchasing enterprise solutions needed to operate a business can vary widely, depending on the size and industry focus of the organization and the nature of their current infrastructure. Explore this useful guide to help you identify the right solution and/or partner.

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How to Create a Solid RFP for Master Data Management

Master data management glossary

PIM, DAM, CDO, data enrichment, matching and linking ... Not quite sure what all those abbreviations and terms mean and how they relate to master data management? Get the answers with this A-Z MDM guide.

The thing that has made Kellogg’s implementation unique is that it has been global from day one. When we evaluated solutions, it had to have that capability and be able to accommodate all the languages and nuances for our markets around the world."

Global Director IT Marketing | The Kellogg Company

Master data types

Master data is a single source of common data, but there are many distinct master data types. They are often duplicated across the business and stored on disconnected, siloed systems with little agreement on standard definition.

Product data Rich and accurate product data helps customers make informed buying decisions. Studies show giving people better information and content boosts online sales and reduces returns. High-quality product data also facilitates accelerated vendor onboarding. Customer data Accurate, timely and complete customer data improves business initiatives and streamlines processes for both B2B and B2C companies. It drives accurate segmentation and reporting, more personalized experiences, increased sales, regulatory compliance and more. Supplier data Store and access all data related to your suppliers in one repository and reference it to any other data domain to achieve a 360° view. This results in greater control, closer relationships and an improved supplier and product onboarding process. Location data Location data is essential for managing your physical stores, offices, warehouses and more. Combine location data with product and supplier data to gain better insight into your data supply chain. Party data Mastering party data allows you to create the relationships that are vital to gain an accurate understanding of the value of each of your records. It makes it easier to identify customers and provide better customer service. Reference data Keeping reference data fields such as country, currency and conversions up-to-date is critical to making key business decisions, understanding their impact on the performance of your systems and meeting regulatory compliance. Asset data Managing asset data with disparate systems across departments can drag down data quality. With all asset data linked together in a central repository you have an accurate overview of who is using what equipment, where it is stored, and when it was maintained and by whom. Employee data Employees are valuable assets. Managing employee data in a centralized MDM solution enables you to connect it with other domains and gain new insights, such as which employees have worked on what projects, where they’re located and their skill levels. Ledger data MDM prevents ERP from becoming a ledger data silo. By connecting ERP with other systems and third-party sources, MDM enhances efficiency and becomes your single source of truth, consolidating product data as well as supplier and vendor information. Vendor data For manufacturers, trustworthy and visible vendor data is crucial to secure correct billing, achieve compliance with vendor and end-consumer demands and quickly expand with new vendors who are typically retailers, the manufacturing company’s B2B customer.

How master data management helps you

MDM extends the value of your IT investments because it integrates and scales with your other systems. MDM covers different data domains relevant to all of your business challenges.

Customer master data management (CMDM)

You can fuel your digital business and IT initiatives—and deliver experiences customers crave—by gaining a single, unified view of customers using CMDM. Transforming how businesses achieve customer understanding, CMDM connects, cleanses and enhances customer data. It gives enterprises the foundation they need to boost their business through segmentation and personalized customer experiences. In addition, they can more easily adhere to governance and regulatory compliance.

According to Accenture, knowing a customer’s purchase history makes them 65% more likely to choose you.

The Data Economy Demands Cross Functional Leadership

How can all of the CxOs come together to maximize the organization’s data? This brief will help you navigate each role in the new data economy.

Get the Brief

data economy demands cross functional mdm leadership

Product master data management

Product master data management (PMDM) brings all your product data into one place to create a single approved source of truth. This enables you to acquire, manage and share product data across your enterprise to feed consistent, accurate and timely information to systems, people and trading partners.

Marks & Spencer

This British retailer had 585 different product attributes and eight international websites using five languages. Having implemented PMDM, Marks & Spencer was able to use rules to control their data, tailor their product range for each country and manage product text translations automatically.

Read the Sucess Story

marks and spencer uses product master data management

Master data management capabilities

MDM delivers core data capabilities that connect and provide information to every point in the business. You can truly transform your business strategies because you have high-quality data dispersed enterprise-wide.