Mastering Data Management

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Jon explains how IBM InfoSphere MDM can help you go the last mile to provide data to those who need it

Master data management software is powering business solutions for our customers around the world - it's just that nobody thinks of MDM in those terms. MDM is typically discussed in technical terms among an IT audience.

In extreme cases, I know of companies who consider MDM a 'four-letter word' in lines of business because they have endured months, sometimes years, of listening to their IT departments talk about the technical benefits of MDM without a link to the business benefits.  IBM is working to change that by focusing on the adoption and consumption of MDM within real-world business solutions.

Technology companies have been touting business solutions for ages. In the most basic sense, business solutions are simply the application of technology to facilitate business processes. They automate the processes to make them less costly, change the processes to make them more effective, or enable new processes that simply weren't possible without technology.

However, many business solutions still suffer from a major drawback: the business solution is tightly coupled with a single application, which forces a company to restrict their business process based on the limitations of the application and the limitations of the data within that application's information 'silo.'

Take, for example, sales and marketing operations. The business processes that matter most to those lines of business are typically coupled to the company's CRM application. What happens if that company wants to improve their business processes, or introduce new processes they have never used before? They can only automate and optimize the process to the extent their CRM application will allow; more importantly, they can only optimize the business decisions coming out of their processes to the extent they have the right information in the CRM database.

Companies attempting to improve business processes or introduce new processes quickly realize they can't do so effectively without pulling together information from more than just one or two applications. That common data they need to pull together is often master data - data about customers, products, vendors, assets, stores and more.

Many MDM solutions in the market focus on only part of the problem - pulling together, or acquiring, this disparate data into a 'hub.' IBM is equally focused on the 'last mile' of the problem - making that hub's information easily available to the processes, applications, and people who need to consume, use, and act on the information.

IBM InfoSphere MDM v10 includes several features to make it easier to act on master information, such as a rich library of business services, the Adaptive Services Interface feature to expose services in industry- and business-specific flavors, and the MDM Application Toolkit to expose master information in graphical widgets for use directly by business users.

But even more importantly, IBM and its business partners offer complete business solutions to critical business problems that combine IBM InfoSphere MDM with additional technology to create more sophisticated and optimized solutions.

For example, take the process of managing and executing marketing campaigns. Business solutions exist to automate and optimize the processes, but even with those solutions in place the outcome still hinges on how complete, accurate, and trustworthy the underlying information is.

Customer segmentation for analyzing and defining campaigns is only as good as the quality of the customer information you start with. Appropriate and correct campaign offers are only possible with a complete, accurate picture of your enterprise products and services. Interactive inbound marketing is not effective if you don't have complete and up-to-date information about prospects.

As just one example of a business solution powered by MDM, IBM offers a full Enterprise Marketing Management suite along with MDM to not only address the management of marketing campaigns but also address the underlying master data on which the campaigns are built and executed.

Whether provided by IBM, a business partner, or built by the customer themselves, business solutions are even more effective and cost-justified when powered by IBM InfoSphere MDM.

Join me at Information on Demand in Las Vegas to learn more and ask questions. I’ll be speaking on Weds, Oct 26 at 11:30 AM in Tradewinds E with my colleague, Alex Eastman. Our session, “Solutions Powered by IBM Master Data Management,” (#IMD-1221A) will include demonstrations, as well.

Several of my colleagues will be talking about additional aspects of IBM InfoSphere MDM v10 at IOD.  See the entire MDM track agenda to plan your trip. I look forward to seeing all of you at IOD.

Can’t attend IOD? We’re publishing several blog posts in coming days to give you more details on some of the features and use cases. See the list of posts and topics.