In the Forrester Research, Inc. Information Management blog, analyst Rob Karel discusses “Master Data Management 2007: The Year In Review.” His truly insightful set of observations:

“…the most valuable and insightful information about the evolution of the MDM market comes from the Forrester customers I speak to every day. …I rarely field questions about MDM vendor selection. Regarding MDM, these customers are more concerned about data governance, organizational readiness, architectural strategy, business case development, prioritization, and the biggie — do we really need to worry about MDM? If so, why? What does it all mean? I’m happy to report that it means you are asking the right questions at the right time.”

Too often customers are fixated on products, and analysts are discussing products as if they alone are the “solutions” to companies’ data challenges. You can’t tackle Master Data Management (MDM), Customer Data Integration (CDI) and Product Information Management (PIM) by simply selecting the right product.

As we have discussed in this blog, Enterprise Data Management (EDM) involves data governance, organizational readiness and architectural strategy as Rob notes, but also business and IT talking together to understand, define and implement business, data and quality requirements. Tools can help implement, but they sure don’t replace the business-IT discussions.

But I liken the promise of an MDM product solution similar to the pursuit of the Holy Grail. Great goal, but maybe it’s not realistically attainable. It is interesting to hypothesize about an MDM product, but is there really the potential for a stand-alone MDM product?

First, product alone is not sufficient. Data governance and other labor-intensive processes are necessary to define what MDM, CDI or PIM means in your enterprise.