Stephan Zoder
IT Business Case Assembly & Corporate Sociology
It has been a while since my last post but recent interactions with clients prompted me to pick up my virtual pen again. This time I would like to share my findings on how clients see the business case as a tool to prove the worth of a business initiative grounded in IT development. As a teaser; so you read the rest of the post, let me postulate that furniture assembly is a good analogy. (more…)
The Value of Knowing the Value
Ever wondered if an initiative is worth the effort? Ever wondered how to quantify its worth? This is a loaded question as you may suspect but I wanted to ask it nevertheless as my team of Global Industry Consultants work with clients around the world to do just that (aka Business Value Assessment or BVA) for solutions anchored around Informatica’s products.
How far will your investment stretch?
As these solutions typically involve multiple core business processes stretching over multiple departments and leveraging a legion of technology components like ETL, metadata management, business glossary, BPM, data virtualization, legacy ERP, CRM and billing systems, it initially sounds like a daunting level of complexity. Opening this can of worms may end up in a measurement fatigue (I think I just discovered a new medical malaise.) (more…)
Walk Before You Run – Social Media Data as the MDM Silver Bullet
The Silver Campaign Bullet
Recently I had a number of meetings with clients who are looking at social media to enrich master data in their legacy data warehouse to improve their batch and real-time campaign effectiveness. They are primarily looking at Facebook as their marketing salvation to create as close to one-on-one offers as possible but there are multiple ways to skin this cat.
Surprisingly, I have seen this thinking primarily in emerging markets. It reminded me how some countries jumped from having a poor fixed line phone infrastructure catapulting themselves to 3G wireless for all citizens within a decade. The decision makers who were part of this overnight communication transformation assume that master data management (MDM) works the same way. (more…)
Location Data: You Could Either Watch It Happen or Be Part of It
Did you hear about Eilon Musk’s, founder of PayPal, billionaire and visionary extraordinaire, SpaceX venture and its recent success of the first privately-funded launch of a rocket to re-supply the International Space Station?
Eilon Musk
You may wonder what this has to do with MDM but there is a connection. Just as forward-thinking as Musk in private space exploration, there are companies who are already exploring on how to use space-based information (geospatial) to deliver higher value to their customers and improved operational efficiency. (more…)
The “Perfect” Master Data Storm is Brewing
Over the last few weeks (more like months), I have been noticing a trend, which some of you may regard as a Bart Simpson “Duh!” moment, but give me some latitude to explain nevertheless. The global trend that I am talking about is the emerging need for master data definition, acquisition, and management in industries beyond the typical ones of financial services and retail. (more…)
Just Ask the Customer
I grabbed my wife’s Harvard Business Review (HBR Jan-Feb 2012) edition before a recent plane ride to a customer meeting. After diving through a bunch of case study-type narratives I ended up in a section titled “Stop Collecting Customer Data” (page 57), which was part of HBR’s “Audacious Ideas” series. This series was aimed at showcasing some proclaimed thought leaders’ very forward-thinking and, in my opinion, also some rather ill guided ideas full off naïveté. (more…)
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