SAP Mentor Podcast: Interview with Maria Villar, SAP’s Line of Business Executive for Data Management

[Former Member]

"What I've come to learn is that the way to get really good data management in companies is to build it into the business process." - Maria Villar, Global VP of Data Management at SAP

When I wrote about The Business Processes of Enterprise Information Management, I asserted that data management was a business process  - actually a sub-process of larger business processes.   In that blog, I also shared my observations of how SAP customers were doing a good job, or not so good job of managing EIM processes.  But, I failed to pose or answer a very important question:  how do companies get past this schism and develop a strategy for managing their information in business processes? The answer is simple:  they organize for it.

Just recently, I learned how SAP organized for EIM when I met Maria Villar, SAP's Global Vice President for Data Management, reporting to SAP's Global Field Organization.  Despite her geeky sounding title, Maria is not in SAP's IT organization.  She ‘s the ranking executive within SAP's sales and service line of business in charge of maintaining and improving SAP's information assets.

In BPM parlance, this makes Maria SAP's "Business Process Expert" for SAP's EIM business processes.

Naturally, within 15 minutes of meeting her, I was already asking to interview her in a podcast. 

So I'm happy to present my interview with Maria Villar as she describes her role within SAP, her discussions with SAP customers and their EIM strategies, and the importance of managing information within business processes.

Listen to the podcast (12 minutes):

Podcast Summary

Here is a short summary of the questions I ask Maria in this podcast:

0:00        Introductions

0:40        Explain the role of your team in SAP

1:40        What are the data issues that SAP is focusing on as a priority?

2:04        How are we measuring the impact and improvement of data quality programs in relation to these priorities?

2:40        So what are the kinds of things that SAP needs to improve in terms of managing our own data quality?

3:27        I recently profiled Podcast:  How SAP IT Uses BPM and Data Services for Post Merger Data Migration related to the acquisitions of Technidata and Sybase.  What role is your team playing in these projects?

5:43        I frequently write about the need for alignment between business and IT in BPM.  How important is this for an EIM strategy?

6:56        Tell us about the kinds of discussions you have with SAP customers in terms of developing their strategies for enterprise information management?

8:38        What SAP customers have you talked to that you feel have a high degree of maturity in their information management strategies?

9:21        What is your opinion is the connection between business process and enterprise information management?

11:49     End of podcast