Data Management—

Emerging Trends
Sourabh Mukherjee
Data Management Practice Head, India
Accenture
Data has always been an
important asset for companies as
it is the basis for making business
decisions. The speed, volume
and variety of unstructured and
semistructured data originating
outside the enterprise firewall are
compelling companies to revisit
their traditional data management
strategies. The need to enhance
the value of master data with
intelligence available in social
media is leading to the emergence
of Social Master Data Management
(MDM). Budget optimization
considerations are encouraging
organizations to warm up to
alternate delivery mechanisms
such as Software as a Service
(SaaS) and Business Process as
a Service (BPaaS). Leading MDM
vendors are, therefore, investing in
cloud-enabled variants of MDM.
Finally, to leverage the relationship
among all master data within
an organization across multiple
domains—customers, products,
suppliers, employees, location to
mention a few—we are seeing the
emergence of Multidomain MDM
solutions.
This article focuses on key trends
within master data management
that businesses are exploring to
gain competitive edge.
Multidomain MDM
The business value of information
is significantly enhanced by
leveraging the relationship
among all master data within
an organization across multiple
domains. Multidomain MDM
solutions empower companies
to improve operations. They give
business users access to not only
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a single, trusted view of business-
critical data about customers,
products, channel partners and
employees but also provide a 360
degree view of relationships among
domains.
Companies may implement single
or multidomain MDM solutions,
depending upon their focus. If
the focus of a company is on
cleaning up and standardizing
a data domain rather than
business processes in general,
then it makes sense to invest in
a solution that’s best suited for
that domain within a particular
industry. If, for example, the focus
is on customer data, then why
should a company buy a generic
multidomain MDM solution and
spend on post-procurement
extension and configuration? Or,
why should it even risk investing
in a very expensive multidomain
MDM solution that has not been
tested for a specific industry?
These are considerations that a
company needs to address right at
the outset.
If, however, the focus is on
increasing the effectiveness of
business processes, multidomain
MDM solutions can be leveraged
to capture data in a holistic
manner. For example, if a retail
company wants to improve the
quality of customer interactions,
it would need information on
which products customers are
buying, from which locations, how
frequently are they purchasing
specific products, and much more.
To optimize the supply chain
process, the company will need to
know about the product range of
its suppliers, together with their
respective locations. The main aim
of MDM is to remove data silos
and create a consolidated single
version of truth. By taking the
single domain route and ending up
with a master data hub for every
domain (a hub for customer data,
one for product data, another for
supplier data and so on), we are
defeating the very philosophy of
MDM.
Single domain MDM solutions
call for capabilities in specific
industries, together with in
depth knowledge about domains
and data models. By contrast,
multidomain MDM solutions
facilitate flexible cross domain
interactions across industries
and are highly configurable. The
success of multidomain MDM
solutions lies in how effectively
a company is able to design
orchestrated business processes
involving diverse domains and the
relationships among them.
MDM and big data
With numerous sources and types
of data from within and outside
the enterprise, the data landscape
has become very complex.
Businesses are still struggling
to get a grip on master data,
metadata, reference data and
huge volumes of transactional
data. Adding to the complexity
is the fact that while some
data originates from enterprise
applications, a significant amount
of data originates from outside
the enterprise firewall. This
includes a variety of structured,
semistructured and unstructured
data that is sourced or syndicated
from external data providers.
Until recently, master data was
considered to be low on velocity,
variety and volume. However,
today’s rapidly changing business
environment is compelling master
data to become more dynamic and
situation-aware. That is because
there are plenty of insights
that need to be captured from
semistructured and unstructured
data. These insights are crucial for
enhancing the quality of master
data and thereby the quality of
business decisions that leverage
that master data.
An MDM hub is not meant to be
a repository of big data. However,
master data attributes derived
from social media information and
audiovisual as well as machine-
generated data can be integrated
with traditional 360-degree
views of customers, products,
suppliers and other data domains.
Businesses can benefit from
the integration as it enhances
the master data by providing
insights into social relationships,
affiliations and customer
sentiments towards products or
services and customer intent.
MDM is a good starting point for
many big data analytics projects.
For instance, a company may want
to find out how the most preferred
customers feel about its most
profitable products, or analyze
their sentiments about the quality
of service on its channels. In such
a case, it would be very fruitful
for the company to identify the
relevant product and customer
data sets for analysis from the
master data hubs. Similarly, for
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http://www.amazon.com/
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https://signup.netflix.com/global
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https://www.facebook.com/
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http://www.linkedin.com/
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marketing initiatives—discounts,
tailored packages specific to
customers and their circle of
influence, for example—companies
can tap into the specific customer,
product and location data along
with information about each of
the customer’s social relationships
and affiliations. This is a classic
case of symbiosis between master
data and big data. Since the MDM
hub is where a company already
keeps the most complete view of
its customers, products, accounts
and other domains, it is also the
most logical place for generating
insights about those domains for
big data analytics.
With the rapid growth of
e-commerce, recommendation
engines are gaining currency.
These engines typically produce a
list of recommendations in one of
two ways—through collaborative
filtering or content-based
filtering. Collaborative filtering
builds a model from the user’s
past behavior (for example, items
previously purchased or selected
and/or numerical ratings given
to those items) as well as similar
decisions made by other users,
then uses that model to predict
items that may be of interest to
the user. Popular examples of
recommendation engines include,
though not limited to:
Amazon.com1: When users browse
for a particular product, the online
store recommends additional items
based on what other shoppers
bought along with the currently
selected item.
Netflix2: Based on the user’s
previous ratings and selection
habits, the online store offers
specific genre of movies to
targeted users.
Facebook,3 LinkedIn,4 and other
social networks: Based on the
existing network of a user, these
sites use collaborative filtering to
recommend new friends, groups,
and other social connections.
Content-based filtering approach
uses a series of discrete
characteristics of an item (for
example, music, book or movie)
in order to recommend additional
items with similar characteristics.
It is evident that the design of
recommendation engines needs to
be based on a sound understanding
of user preferences of product
features. It also needs to consider
user networks and user interaction
patterns across channels with
the enterprise. This necessitates
building a robust foundation of
customer and product data which
MDM can provide.
MDM and cloud
Historically, on-premise MDM
systems have required heavy
investments in hardware
infrastructure, software
development, customization,
maintenance, security and
deployment of the MDM solutions.
Today, businesses need data
solutions that are not only highly
flexible, scalable and available, but
also offer a flexible cost structure.
Businesses expect the solutions
to provide high data security
and integrate easily with the
enterprise applications as well as
with other cloud-based solutions
or apps for the mobile platform.
Mobile platforms are already
redefining data collection and
consumption strategies. Through
social communities, consumers are
influencing product acceptance
and brand image, and there is a
growing demand for information in
real time.
Innovation in cloud technologies
are creating new business
models for MDM—Platform as a
Service (PaaS), Infrastructure as
a Service (IaaS) and Software as
a Service (SaaS). By leveraging
these mechanisms, MDM
solutions can be rolled out faster
as they use tested, audited and
certified infrastructure and
reusable solution components
with relatively low upfront
investments. The upfront activities
usually take the form of minimal
customization for a specific
client, integration with existing
enterprise applications or external
data sources, or client-specific
data cleansing and initial data
load action. The cloud-based
MDM platform integrates more
easily with other cloud-based
applications or apps for the mobile
platform than with an on-premise
MDM solution, requiring extensive
customizations. Moreover, since
vendors generally offer a service
level agreement (SLA)-driven
service, clients have a predictable
cost structure in the “pay-as-you-
go” model. As a result, the upfront
capital expenditure for setting up
an MDM solution is translated into
a more predictable operational
expense structure.
The cloud-based MDM journey
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calls for defining a clear MDM
strategy. This implies developing
a hosting strategy, identifying
an MDM hosting partner as well
as a SaaS provider and exploring
BPaaS options for ongoing data
stewardship in collaboration
with (but minimal) involvement
of business users. It also means
having a clear governance strategy,
together with data stewardship
services and service SLA tracking.
Another, equally important
aspect of the MDM strategy is to
develop an execution strategy for
customizing and integrating the
core enterprise systems with the
cloud-based MDM solution.
At Accenture
It is critical that master data is
accurate, consistent and accessible
across the enterprise. A sound
data management approach
should span the enterprise across
multiple lines of business and be
driven by business stakeholders
with support from IT. The master
data management initiatives at
Accenture follow a comprehensive
approach involving a series of
phases—strategy development
and analysis, people enablement,
data preparation, process
engineering, technology selection,
implementation and change
management.
Our data management approach
encompasses data architecture,
data quality, data integration,
master-meta-reference data
management, data security, data
stewardship and governance.
This holistic approach isolates
the sources of inaccuracies and
establishes data management
processes and governance
structures that deliver “one vision
of the truth” across the enterprise.
Accenture’s proprietary master
data management assets help
clients identify opportunities for
improving their data management
capabilities and generate value
from their master data quickly.
Our data management framework
provides a proven platform for
integrating all components of
a successful data management
strategy, including industry
standard data models and
business rules, methodologies
and best practices around system
integration, business process re-
engineering and data and process
governance.
Accenture has a dedicated Data
Management Practice in India
with expertise in a variety of
leading technologies—Informatica,
IBM, SAP, Oracle and TIBCO—
for data management strategy,
implementation and sustenance
requirements across multiple
industries. Our strong alliance
partnerships with product vendors
ensure we get exclusive updates
on product releases and invitations
to their boot camp trainings and
other forums. Furthermore, we are
also the trusted partner of several
product vendors in their go-to-
market initiatives globally.
Realizing the
full potential of
enterprise data
Increasing business demand for
actionable insights, real-time
analysis and one version of truth,
together with cloud, big data
and analytics technologies are
beginning to give us a glimpse
of what is possible with data.
However, to harvest maximum
benefits from enterprise data, it is
important for companies to align
their traditional data management
strategies with an MDM and data
quality strategy that leverages
emerging technologies.

About Accenture
Accenture is a global management
consulting, technology services
and outsourcing company, with
approximately 275,000 people
serving clients in more than 120
countries. Combining unparalleled
experience, comprehensive
capabilities across all industries
and business functions, and
extensive research on the world’s
most successful companies,
Accenture collaborates with
clients to help them become
high-performance businesses
and governments. The company
generated net revenues of US$28.6
billion for the fiscal year ended
Aug. 31, 2013. Its home page is
www.accenture.com

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