Ravi Shankar
Putting Master Data In The Hands Of Business Users
As companies increasingly explore master data management (MDM), we often hear inquiries about the usability of master data by business users.
Common questions include: Do business users need to learn and use a separate MDM application? Do they need support from IT to access master data? Can master data fit into the everyday business applications they use for CRM, SFA, ERP, supply chain management, and so forth?
If your organization has ever asked these questions, you should take a look at our new white paper, “Drive Business User Adoption of Master Data.” (more…)
Inaugural Gartner MDM Summit In London A Major Hit
Europe might have started a little later than the U.S. with master data management, but if the inaugural Gartner MDM Summit for EMEA is any indication, it’s catching up quickly. Well over 350 registrants attended the event in London in early February, with strong representation from the UK, France, the Netherlands and other EMEA countries. Gartner Research VP Andrew White called the event a “major hit,” and I have to agree. (more…)
Informatica Acquires Siperian: One Year Later
It was about one year ago on January 28, 2010, that Informatica announced its acquisition of Siperian, a pure-play multidomain MDM vendor.
What a year it’s been. As a five-year veteran of Siperian/Informatica, it’s been thrilling and gratifying to be a part of the enterprise technology landscape that MDM has become. Part of the reason for this success is simply the proven business value that MDM is delivering to companies across multiple industries with data that is trusted, authoritative, and current. Just consider some of the momentum and highlights we’ve seen over the past year:
Seven Ways To Reduce IT Costs With MDM
We often hear from our Informatica MDM customers about the main benefits they’ve realized from master data management (MDM)—smarter, faster decision-making and greater productivity though timely and reliable data. What’s less widely recognized is that MDM is proving to be a powerful cost-saving engine, as well.
For instance, a global investment bank saved millions of dollars by using Informatica MDM to virtually eliminate maintenance and support costs for a complex web of point-to-point integrations. If you’re using or considering MDM, it’s a smart idea to assess the costs of unintegrated data systems and examine cost-saving strategies and tactics available through a multidomain, model-driven MDM solution. (more…)
Informatica World: MDM Was A Big Hit!
This was the first year that Informatica showcased its newly acquired Informatica MDM product to its customers at Informatica World. And, it was a mega hit! Swarms of customers quickly filled up breakout sessions, hands-on-labs, demo pavilion, and birds-of-a-feather sessions!
Seven breakout sessions were offered and all of them were standing-room-only. I kicked off the sessions with an introduction to Informatica MDM and highlighted the different multidomain MDM solutions that are being used to solve pressing business problems for several Fortune 500 customers. Sal Caruso from Bank of America Merrill Lynch presented Merrill’s powerful MDM Journey beginning with the original Merrill Lynch implementation and ending with the new MDM integration across Bank of America and Merrill Lynch. The driver? Increasing revenue by improving cross-sell and up-sell. No wonder, Merrill won the prestigious 2010 Informatica Innovation Award in the “Improving Customer Information to Enhance Customer Service or Increase Customer Revenue” category. Then Charles Bloodworth from Johnson & Johnson presented J&J’s MDM Journey, which won the inaugural Gartner MDM Excellence Award in 2008. The driver? Improving the order-to-cash business process to improve the customer experience. Mike Striefel from St. Jude Medical presented St. Jude’s MDM Journey across Physician Spend Management and Product Masters. The drivers? More efficient and effective compliance reporting and improved sales analytics. Winston Hsiao, who has successfully implemented Informatica MDM at several customers over the last 7 years, presented the “Top 10 MDM Tips and Tricks” to a packed room. Greg Levins, from Comsys, presented best practices for Master Data Governance success. Interested in viewing these presentations? Visit the Informatica World presentation library. (more…)
Informatica TweetJam: This Time It’s About MDM
Master Data Management (MDM) is certainly abuzz! In its recently released Magic Quadrants for MDM, Gartner projects a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 18% for the next three years. Numbers aside, where is MDM heading? Multidomain? Complex Relationship/ Hierarchy Management? Business adoption of master data? Customer Data Integration (CDI) and Product Information Management (PIM) as separate markets and simply Single Version of the Truth seems so yesterday! At Informatica, we are see an increasing number of MDM interests/ implementations being multidomain. It’s no longer about enough to just gain a single version of the truth – business processes like cross-sell/ up-sell require a complex relationship of which customer owns what products. And, if the business doesn’t consume the master data, your MDM implementation can end up in the MDM graveyard. Do you see it that way? Join us for the TweetJam on Nov 11th at 9am Pacific, 12noon Eastern. (more…)
Leveraging the Flexibility of Informatica MDM: An Architecture Deep Dive
Informatica World pre-conference session kicked off on Monday at the Gaylord National Harbor, Washington DC. One of the four sessions was “Leveraging the Flexibility of Informatica MDM – An Architecture Deep Dive”. Dmitri Korablev, VP of MDM Strategy, Ron Matusof, VP of MDM Solution Architecture, and Steve Hoskin, MDM Chief Architect conducted the session. The key objective was to explain the advanced architectural concepts of Informatica MDM relating to security, high performance, high availability, concurrency, and integration.
Dmitri started off quoting Albert Einstein “make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler” as the guiding principle that drove the design of Informatica MDM. He and Ron presented the six-step process to design an MDM solution – defining usage scenarios, selecting solution options, evaluating consumption patterns, defining data model, defining solution architecture, and applying non-functional requirements to the solution. Deeper conversations in each of the steps emphasized the guiding principle – keep MDM solution design simple! (more…)
Giving Business Users An Expanded Role In Master Data Management
Master data management (MDM) is increasingly at use in organizations to deliver a single, reliable view of customers, products, suppliers, partners, and more. But how can you put master data into the hands of the people who need it most—your business users?
We’ve just published a new white paper that drills down into this important topic and outlines how data governance and collaboration among business users, data stewards, and IT can help organizations make the most of MDM. This paper provides in-depth guidance on how data governance and collaboration can streamline processes so that: (more…)
Still On The Road: Thoughts On Data Governance From San Diego
My heavy travel schedule continues to pay dividends as far as providing insight into what’s happening around the world re: all things master data management (MDM) and related subjects. Couple of weeks back I was in San Diego for the combined Data Governance Annual Conference / IDQ Conference, which for the past few years has been a pretty mellow get together for around 150 to 200 attendees. This year there were 360 attendees, probably twice as many as in previous years. And the composition of the conference was different also, with lots more people from the business side. In years past we’d see around 60% of attendees from the IT side, and 40% business users. The mix was right around 50/50 this year, so it’s pretty obvious that awareness of the importance of data governance is way up across the board.
On Tuesday I gave a talk on how leading organizations are adopting proactive data governance to deliver immediate efficiencies within business functions, thus improving business user productivity and increasing business adoption. The conference room had a capacity of 50, but we had 65 people in attendance, and quite a few folks stopped by after the presentation to share their thoughts on proactive approach, or to get some more information on how MDM works for data governance. For the uninitiated, Dan Power’s blog post from April, When Data Governance Turns Bureaucratic, is a great starting point. (more…)
The View From Over There: MDM Making Inroads With International Decision Makers
In late April I was in London to give the MDM keynote at Informatica World, and was surprised to be greeted by a standing-room-only crowd of at least 200 people. When I asked how many of those in attendance were actively engaged in or interested in evaluating MDM, at least a quarter of the room raised a hand. If I’d given the same talk two years ago, I would have expected a crowd of 100 at best, and maybe 10% of the room responding affirmatively to the same question.
Further, in discussions with conference attendees after my talk and in the days following, I got the strong impression that MDM is generating pretty intense interest in the U.K. and the larger EMEA market. While the MDM space in the U.S. has crossed the chasm from early adopters to nearly general use, I feel that Europe isn’t far behind. The interest is to the point where it feels like IT and business executives across quite a few industries are looking at MDM as a means to address a widening range of strategic business challenges. I’d say attitudes in Europe toward MDM are now very similar to where they are in the U.S.: that MDM is widely perceived as a viable technology approach to addressing business problems. (more…)
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