No matter if you intentionally shard data or simply have multiple packsystems for managing your business it is highly probably that you have multiple copies of the same information.
Your accounting system has accounts payable and accounts receivable, each most likely having customer or vendor information. You could also have your sales system, or warehousing system with overlapping data. Perhaps you have a CRM system or a Sales Management system, again with overlapping data.
This is where the concept of a master data system comes into play, defining a process for identifying the most accurate instance of data, and perhaps even pushing the resulting changes back out into other source systems.
There are a number of tools for Master Data Management. All of them require implementation and design to make it useful. It does not work out of the box. Due to the nature of multiple systems in many companies I’m prompted to ask the question, “How important is Master Data Management to your company’s success?” Is this an area of growth and a skillset to seek?
Share your perspective here or by email to btaylor@sswug.org.
Cheers,
Ben