The Globalized World requires MDM
The Globalized World
In today’s world; Time and efficiency is the key. The time and efficiency is related to following global dynamics in today’s lateral global world.
1. Mergers and Acquisitions – Currently almost every Organization is in the mode of mergers and acquisitions which results in heterogeneous, distributed and scattered landscape. Also organizations are finding it quite difficult to get control over new merged/acquired organization. Usually it takes quite a long time to integrate new merged/acquired systems to current systems. Moreover management is not able to get consolidated reports for both merged/acquired and flagship organization E.g. Organization has acquired competitors business. Thus now the organization can have same customers, similar products appearing twice or more in organization reporting.
2. Products Problem – Every organization is facing the challenge to reach its customers with the right product at right time. E.g. companies take order even when a product is out of stock, modified or discontinued but this information is not available throughout the organization.
3. Customer – Customer is King however every customer is unique and thus facing lot of problems. Because of competition (which is good), there are many products for customer to choose from. However customer should be able to find the right product he needs without wasting his energy, time and money without ending up with wrong product. Also incomplete, duplicate data causes many problems like failure in getting payment, wastage of operational cost, wastage of marketing efforts, fraud, poor customer service, loss of customer loyalty and brand Image etc.
E.g. A customer can be annoyed if he is sent forms again and again when he is existing customer over the years. Similarly platinum customers will be annoyed if they will be asked their preference again and again.
All these problems are casues for Master Data Management (Products, Customer, and Vendors etc). Master data management is not new and almost every Organization is ‘trying’ to manage it with their experience and knowledge with the help on inbuilt systems and tools. I deliberately included ‘trying’ cause its not the right approach. The Organizations are trying to solve the symptoms of master data problems but not able to solve root cause problem.
The good thing is that industry has recognized this problem and coming up with a tool to manage this. This technology is currently evolving and with their experience and knowledge with several Organizations, they will be able to deliver a product which will solve master data management problems of organizations.
SAP has solution for these problems with their MDM tool which is part of Netweaver stack tool. With the help of SAP MDM, organization will be able to achieve and establish ‘single version of truth’ of their master data.
SAP MDM can solve organization problems with the help of
Master Data Consolidation
Master Data Harmonization
Central Master Data Management
Customer Data Integration
Product Information Management
Improved Business Intelligence
Global Data Synchronization
SRM/MDM Catalogue
In case of mergers and acquisitions; MDM system can map the master data between newly acquired/merged and flagship systems. This will enable organizations to get immediate control over newly acquired/merged companies and get consolidated and complete reporting.
In case of Products; PIM can help organizations to reach customers with all the products. Organization can publish their product catalogs and also with pdf, audio, video etc. Thus customer can have better reach and understanding or a company products and profile.
Similarly, CDI is the solution for customer master data problems. With the help of CDI, organizations will be able to get 360 degree view of their customers and thus able to meet their requirements and serve better.
Company : SATYAM Computer Services Limited
Role : Projects Lead / Project Manager
Above shared views are my personal views and might not synchronize with my company views.
