Master Data Management
Where is master data management heading in the future?
Businesses are creating and consuming data at unprecedented rates. With data becoming the foundation for crucial business decisions, data management assumes a central role for most businesses. Today, data has both monetary and social value, and it’s up to organisations as to how they can derive the best value from this data. Data management solutions provide data security, scalability, and reliability, allowing organisations to use data for search, analytics and governance. Making sense of data is where Master Data Management (MDM) comes in. MDM solutions clean up, organise and structure the data so that it can be easily accessed and analysed.
MDM continues to evolve to adapt to the fast-changing digital world and has become a crucial aspect for data-driven businesses. To truly master the art of data management, organisations must keep track of the latest developments in MDM.
Top trends in MDM
MDM is scaling industries: As businesses realise the value of becoming data-driven, MDM will become one of the key focus areas in data management. Master data comprises the core data assets owned by the organisation that are required for business operations, such as customer data and product data, amongst other important entities. By adopting MDM, organisations have a single source of truth for master data. The data explosion across industries necessitates the adoption of MDM by businesses across industries. So, whether it is healthcare, finance, or retail; every business is seeing the value of MDM for enterprise data. The rationale to adopt MDM has also changed - from being compliance and risk-driven to becoming customer-centric businesses with a focus on improving customer service, experience, and satisfaction.
Intelligent tech is fuelling MDM adoption: MDM players are using Artificial intelligence (AI) and Machine learning (ML) technologies to augment data quality, data governance, data validation and data maintenance. AI can easily identify duplicate records and maintain data integrity and consistency. Rules and policies can be easily enforced, and data can be validated with AI/ML solutions. Changes and automatic updates to data can be done with AI/ML-based MDM solutions. With AI/ML and Natural Language Processing (NLP)-based MDM, data can be democratised and become accessible to all types of users. As MDM solutions become more accessible, they also provide crucial master data for real-time consumption.
MDM is becoming multi-domain: MDM has been typically driven by specific business requirements, and hence is focused on single data discipline such as customer data or product data. However, as businesses move towards customer-centricity, improving supplier experience and becoming more data-driven, multi-domain MDM requirements are rising to help businesses exploit new growth opportunities. Multi-domain MDM offers several advantages to businesses. For example, businesses can analyse customer buying patterns with product and customer data. Forecasting, planning and cost control can improve. Businesses can achieve a 360-degree view of all data across products and departments, without having to integrate several data repositories and applications, making it a cost-effective solution.
Cloud-based MDM is on the rise: Rising dependency on multi-domain MDM and the vast amounts of data will require MDM solutions to become cloud-native. MDM solutions on the cloud offer better agility and capacity, besides being cost-effective and reducing the total cost of ownership (TCO). Migration of applications and data on the cloud becomes efficient. Cloud-based MDM offers higher scalability and flexibility, improved collaboration and integration of data across applications and departments.
Business Intelligence (BI) will embrace MDM: MDM is becoming part of an integrated data management approach that facilitates a unified view of data. This facilitates democratisation of data as well as using the data for critical decision making. As organisations consume data for improved business outcomes, there is also an increased focus on the quality of master data. Data governance of master data will take on a more formalised approach. Increasing automation, AI and ML-based technologies will augment tasks for improving data quality for MDM.
Projections for growth of the global MDM market indicate a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 12.9 per cent between 2023 and 2030. There are several factors that are fuelling the growth of the MDM industry. The demand for high quality and consistent data has escalated in recent years, both due to increased compliance requirements, the necessity to improve business process efficiency, and improved customer satisfaction while taking advantage of new opportunities. MDM solutions need to be cautious about data security and privacy regulations, while driving agility and adding value to businesses. An intelligent MDM solution* will fuel higher cost efficiency, revenue and profits, while ensuring that compliance and regulatory requirements are met with élan.
*For organizations on the digital transformation journey, agility is key in responding to a rapidly changing technology and business landscape. Now more than ever, it is crucial to deliver and exceed on organizational expectations with a robust digital mindset backed by innovation. Enabling businesses to sense, learn, respond, and evolve like a living organism, will be imperative for business excellence going forward. A comprehensive, yet modular suite of services is doing exactly that. Equipping organizations with intuitive decision-making automatically at scale, actionable insights based on real-time solutions, anytime/anywhere experience, and in-depth data visibility across functions leading to hyper-productivity, Live Enterprise is building connected organizations that are innovating collaboratively for the future.
