Thursday 27 June 2013

Master Data Management and Its Benefits


Are you aware of master data management process? It is the set of data frequently used by transactions once they are developed, succeeded and finally closed out. A typical sales order addresses to a user, items, mode of payment, shipment charges, accounts and a standardized form of terms and conditions. Referencing such information sets means providing additional reference numbers including PO and sales order, and dates involving request date, shipping date, promise date and more. The precision, accuracy and minimal number of duplicates of the master data will assist the progress of the transactions to get through and clear seamlessly. Consolidating all the master records into a single entity is known as data de-duplication. Ending up with duplicate and redundant data creates the same problems in entities and there is a concern there related to its accuracy and completeness of the data. If by anyhow addresses are incorrect, email addresses are wrong or missing, or settings on item records are inaccurate and inapt, the result could lead to the occurrence of problems with transactions related to wrong location, shipping issues, and delay in shipping, along with the inability to make the transactions complete, inability to send email notifications in the way it is desired and required.

Along with getting rid from the duplicates and get accurate information while dealing with the integrated systems in medium and large sized organizations with varied entry and edit points for keeping a track record of master records and assuring that all the records are in sync is an integral part of the master data management process. We can consider this in an example. The customer records could be created in multiple systems including ERP, CRM and others with an organization. In this regard, if the enterprise goes through more than one merger and acquisition resulting in various ERP and CRM systems than maintaining that full cross company visibility and presence becomes more tedious and challenging.

The foremost step of master data management process in an enterprise is to identify the most important and critical information available in it. Doing this step all alone can help to examine what is complex and important within an organization and once controls and business rules are deployed on your critical and sensitive information, MDM prevent critical errors, less likely to make the same mistakes again in the long run. Once it is implemented, the major focus will be on safeguarding its critical data, keeping it accurate and clean. In general, master data management process is used in multiple sectors defining the system rules, business processes, data ownership, standards and norms defined across systems, domains and departments within an enterprise at all levels. MDM Solutions for Life Sciences has its own advantages and disadvantages. Along with pharmaceutical domain, it is used in many other verticals including life sciences and healthcare.

In last few years, it has been a point of discussion on single domain and multiple domain MDM structures. In single domain, the customers and suppliers are tracked on an individual basis. On the other hand, in multi domain, MDM process treats one entity as a party and store its address once but define on individual basis its relationship with the different ones with the party including customer, supplier, partner etc. Defined as a methodology applied for researching and deploying business rules and controls all around the data, there are many advantages of implementing MDM process in your company. Helpful in preventing critical errors related to fraud and deceit, master data management can assist in making an efficient, smarter and better company.

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