The Basics of Master Data Management

If we talk about MDM i.e. master data management at a basic level, it is simply the data and information used and accessed by more than two applications/systems in an enterprise. There could be varied forms of data such as employee data, customer data, asset data, product data and location data. Effective management of the master data is mandatory to handle in order to assure whether the universal master data is same everywhere and wherever it is accessed across the enterprise. The ultimate truth is that master data do exist in every organization though it can be named in different companies by different names and no matter whether it is managed in an organized or unorganized manner. MDM is basically an approach taken forward by organizations and companies worldwide to create and maintain accurate, well defined and structured lists of master data. This process is not at all as it seems like; it is much more complicated and tedious to manage because of the following reasons.

•Master data management is not only about tools and technology but also about processes. The deployment of MDM solutions need analysis of how and why data has to be collected and used across the company and might command for changes in the existing defined processes.

•MDM is not as such a methodology or a product implementation process. There are umpteen numbers of vendors and third parties selling MDM tools and other advisory solutions. In fact, some of the MDM potentials and capabilities have been aggravated to some of the best-in big data management tools for better performance. But, there is no as such perfect size that fits all especially when it comes to MDM.

•The platform demands high level enterprise wide commitment, dedication and support. The initial investment and the costs incurring in the same including efforts as well as money are frightening and the initiative could fall at the curb particularly if it is poorly represented and underfunded.

•MDM solutions could be complete waste and useless if there is no apt and well defined data quality procedures and data governance checks. The entire master data management infrastructure should be mature and defined enough in order to get it implemented and deployed.

There are many reasons behind showing interest in MDM Pharma in the last few years. Few of them are mentioned in below.

•Master data is one of the most precious and useful assets an organization can have. Moreover, oftentimes an organization can be acquired only because of its data. This leads to the important fact that it’s mandatory and must to care of your data assets to remain in a lucrative business.

•Over the years, strategies and practices like ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and EDW (Enterprise Data Warehousing) have been promising and engaging in fulfilling some of the business needs instantly though in many of them such investments have not resulted in an affiliated and linked view of the data across the organizations. Master data management is one of the other approaches been extensively successful in meeting those desirable and expected goals.

•The demands and pre-acquisitions needed in regulatory compliance, the rising fame and popularity of SaaS (Software as a Service), the significance of consistent and unified reporting and the increasing number of mergers and acquisitions have all made the platform more than a mere necessity rather than luxury specifically among globalized firms.

MDM is an interesting concept and it is not directly linked with cost savings or revenue generation. Though, it is an integral part of the foundation that makes businesses and firms data more useful, beneficial and reliable. As per the promotional stuff related to master data management summit, the process is not a single project task in fact is an ongoing journey. Among all the obstacles and challenges on this path, individual organizations are integrating and blending the MDM approach with the data using conventional business intelligence practices. And, there are many leaders pioneering in the same line amongst which one of the reckoned names is IB Technology.

Marketers Insight to Using Recommendation Engines

As marketers and promoters look for ways to implement rising amounts and value of personalization technology to enhance and make better customer experiences and raise sales lift, one of the most famous and vastly reckoned technologies especially in the retail and e-commerce marketplace is use of online product big datarecommendation engines. Such defined tools assist to render customized and tailored recommendation suggestions and solutions that enrich the online buying and selling journey by delivering proper and apt up selling and cross selling opportunities as integral part of user experience and acquaintance. Though with the availability of so many solutions in the marketplace at present it could be tedious to actually know what to look for in solutions that could help to surpass the needs of the brand as well as raise sales revenue. Most of the recommendation engines make use of collaborative as well as behavioral filtering approach to make sure that the relevant recommendations are timely based and precise or not, based on where the customers lie in the buyer’s online shopping experience. By using a perfect combination of such defined approaches aptly and properly, it assures that the recommendations are provided at the right time and in the right manner and most important of all in the right context. Just for an example, once the recommendations and considerations have been given to the item purchase and it has been shipped then it is vital and mandate for the recommendation engine to do not keep suggesting pushing alternatives and substitutes affecting the risk associated and disrupting a sale. This is the major reason that the technology should provide the capability and potency for the dealers and vendors to both affect the recommendation strategy as well as acknowledge how the outcomes are going to be derived so that one can actually stay in the control of buyer and seller journey.

Revenue contribution is for sure going to be one of the most important and key measures of success for recommendation engines but is good to go beyond this assuring the solutions meeting and fulfilling the wider objectives of the business. The other few key considerations could be like mentioned in below.

1.       Driving revenue and profit – Margin data could be a great way to tune up your recommendation engine assuring that you are influencing bottom line as well as optimizing profit opportunity for your business.

2.       Recommendations prediction – Always think and analyze about what impression you want from the visitors to go away and what they say actually about you people as retailers.

3.       Recommendations driving lift and the major focus – The foremost thing every marketer used to ask and query about are whether the recommendations are really making a big difference or not. It is another arena where business rules can assist in up selling of your products and leading incremental revenue.

Online product recommendation engines can for sure provide a good boost in your website revenue and when merged with the insight and knowledge of the marketing firm along with the user experience and sales distribution goes hand in hand. IB Technology , Cognizant, Oracle and Polaris are the few reckoned names offering such services all over the world. And make sure to choose your recommendation solution wisely that has the capability to optimize the opportunity from every customer engagement.

Market Research – Big Data

Recently in a market research conducted for big data solutions, it provided a detailed information and analysis on the concept. In big data, basically the data and information is studied, collected and construed by data specialists and experts. With the passing time, the accumulated data also increases. In fact, data used to double and triple each year. As technology soaks into becoming a significant and vital part of our day to day lives, researchers and scientists have created text analytics. It is a tech intricately designed to look for answers to very particular inquiries held in multiple databases all over the internet platform. Of course, as the information increases in amount, it demands a better and more efficient tool to handle and manage its trillions of gigabytes of data. And, this new technology that is applied for the same purpose is known as ‘Big Data’. The technology has tools and techniques that let the data agent to browse for solutions to queries in a vast collection of databases that are humongous in figures as well as too complex to determine in the traditional ways. Big data solutions can not only help in mining and drilling down the big chunks and bytes of data and analyze invaluable answers related to the same but also could examine the data written in multiple programming languages in different formats and posted in different sites.

Questions related to the big data mines and the sentiments of the users represented in varied forms including keywords that are entered in the leading search engines, social networks, applications used across the web irrespective of the fact from where it was, whether from a personal system or a tablet or a smart phone, it can actually delved into all letting the sentiment analysis to be done and completed. Remarkably, big data is booming and growing. It makes sense and adds beneficently to even unstructured data that is much easier and widely used to extract useful information. Most of the companies demand this and prepares other companies for the future and just because of this new tool; many other new opportunities have flourished and boomed. Big data firms demand people and users to know logics of data sciences, mathematics and even programming and manage the huge tech and make sure to keep themselves up to date according to the tasks. The new trends are the opportunities figured and examined by the analysis of the patterns found though big data and many other entrepreneurs are able to find which of the business they should venture into.

The leading firms dealing and handling bigger data sets are IB Technology , Wipro, Cognizant, R Systems, NetApp, Oracle and McKinsey. Last but not least, big data solutions make use of modern analytics software including customized data and predictive analytics to meet the purpose from which big data is created.

IB Technology going to attend Big Dip Conference in Boston

IB Technology , an integral part of Indiabulls group is well respected and acknowledged at a global level and proved its credibility over the years. Catering services in varied domains like Financial, Power, Capital Markets, Technology, Telecom, Utilities, Life Sciences, and Power, the company just confirmed that it is going to become a conference partner of the forthcoming event that is Big Dip – focusing on big data in pharmaceutical industry to be held in Boston in coming month September 2013.  

Believing in the strategy to nail down and sharpen the approach, enrich the culture and access the goldmine, now it would be easy to introduce your own big data strategy faster and quicker as could be possible. All across the pharmaceutical domain, big data leaders and pioneers are moving ahead into a new world blended with undiscovered and unknown capability and potential. The excitement is apparent and obvious, the opportunities are tangible and positive and the impact it is going to have will be for sure dramatic. For the first time, this conference Big Dip 2013 is going to gather and drive big data strategy at the top tier pharma domain to debate in the quickest way and to put such programs into practice.

The basic elements for binding big data in your business could be because of umpteen reasons whether it is all about transforming research and development, optimizing your functions, or creating an industry culture or making use of real world data as a tool to improvise coverage and assure reimbursement and embrace social media. Many renowned and well known people would be there to clear your doubts and queries related to big data and master data management solutions.

The company, IB Technology has a geographic presence across three major continents and is mainly focusing on business and technology solutions that could be served to medium and large-sized companies worldwide. For more information about the company and its caterings feel free to visit http://www.ibtechnology.com/index.html.

Get in touch with us at +91 124 6682673 or write down to us at sales@ibtechnology.com. Feel free to ask for a quote or contact us either at the below mentioned company’s particulars or fill a form available at http://www.ibtechnology.com/corporate/contactus.aspx for more details.

Indiabulls Technology Solutions Limited
Indiabulls House,
448-451, Udyog Vihar,
Phase-V,
Gurgaon, 122 001

Managing Pharma Regulations with MDM

The pharmaceutical industry has treasured and gleaned more than its fair share of media captivation and attention following headlines revealing the recent Vioxx drug reminiscence, in which older American patients buying drugs from Canada face the accusations and allegations of drug manufacturers and the related prices hiking up impacting the face of AIDS epidemic and Fen-Phen anti obesity drug norms and defined lawsuits. Apparently deliberations and contemplations have been made to mount the federal government following the lead of top five American states and again authorize and constitute new regulations on the physical marketing and respective spend. In spite of facing critical and severe public relation crisis, the pharmaceutical sector continues to yield strong and profitable benefits and fighting against a hail of new regulatory and administrative threats in what has been already is one of the most highly managerial and governing industries.

Muddling to Find Solutions – At such an uncertain and ambiguous environment, IT managers and compliance professionals are juggling with each other to find beneficial solutions to address existing as well as forthcoming regulatory prerequisites. After priory investing zillion of dollars on Sarbanes Oxley agreement, pharmaceutical firms have made appropriate investments to affirm and ascertain privacy management, product recall requirements and marketing preferred solutions for both physicians, patients along with the spend management reporting solutions. Undoubtedly, all such regulatory issues share one common thing that is the utmost requirement for reliable and trust worthy control of master data or key business data associated with products, customers and locations. Having precise and accurate expertise related to user demographics for patients as well as physicians and their marketing preferences with the firm are no longer efficient and profiting tools for generating and yielding new business though needed for managing regulatory compliance and reporting, MDM pharma is a strategic and cardinal business driver enabling firms and companies to affiliate and aggregate the data about their users, products and firms fragmented and scattered across varied systems. By developing a centralized master data hub, firms can render the most candid and determined views of key business data available within their defined existing business procedures and most significantly browse such small and big data sets within operational business processes to remain in conformity adhered with simplified reporting and different privacy requirements.

Constituting a Regulatory and Authorized Framework – Along with the common data integration issues spanning across compliance management and the defined agreement, companies all over the world are choosing to invest time and effort in a technology platform capable to support their different and critical compliance initiatives now and in the long run it is must to address every regulatory mandate with an end to end solution. In all, nowadays it is must for organizations to consolidate and streamline data processes and secure reliable data in order to apparently fulfill state compliance mandates related to associate sales spend. And, MDM pharma is the new battle ground fighting not only against the diverse complex regulations as well as enabling firms to efficiently manage the entire data cycle of employees, physicians, product information and patients. In addition, master data management solutions builds a foundation for good compliance management system that efficiently lower down the cost of managing new regulations and create an ongoing and extraordinary competitive advantage.

Market Survey and Research about Recommendation Engine

According to the detailed research done and lots of surveys for recommendation engines created in collaboration with renowned companies, it came out with few surprises. B2B is a strong and driving marketplace, and almost half of the suspects devise to deploy recommendations by the last year. These days, big data recommendation engines are emerging and dawning as the top notch marketing as well as advertising tools for all kinds of businesses. The technology is being used to personalize and tailor made communications, improvise website search, drive conversion and lift productivity. A recommendation engine advises and suggests people items including products, services and articles including personalized content that can be viewed by online customers. Making use of big data, hadoop and other platforms, recommendation engines are used for multiple purposes. Some of them are even mentioned in brief below.

1.       Build a personalized experience for a specific segment or a customer.

2.       Advise and commend people additional products based on their buying preferences and patterns from the recommended community.

3.       Help to showcase and present banners and ads that are more likely to be specific and apt for a particular group involving bunch of people based on their profiles and information provided.

4.       Draft a personalized e-commerce website customized according to every customer relationship covering queries like sports played, machines managed or car owned and more.

5.       Deliver a personalized and customized view of the corporate intranet.

6.       Build a tailored support online portal to the professional help desk.

7.       Customized content featured and addressed in e-mails or displayed on the website.

The purpose and motto of the survey was to do some research and detailed study on the goals, potential, capabilities and achievements for recommendation engines. In last month, there was a survey conducted for recommendation engines in which there were about 100 respondents to three versions of survey. About 10% of them were already using such systems, many of them have plans to deploy them in next few months and few of them are not even aware of the same. As a conclusion, about half of the respondents are pretty sure and know about recommendations. Retailers and vendors unanimously chose such frameworks for deployment.

In a zest, the top three purposes for which respondents and appellants chose big data recommendation engines are either for content personalization, personalizing ads or up-selling to be done for an e-commerce website or online portal. Moreover, the three arenas that could be addresses as separate market platforms used by recommendation engine vendors and third parties are revenue, acquisition and last but not least user satisfaction. We used to ask people all across the world a lot about what recommendations are for. And unsurprisingly, answers are all same that is along with increasing effectiveness and performance, taking more care of customer acquisition, revenue generation and client satisfaction. Even in few countries, employee productivity and potency was an important and vital factor for many of the appellants of small, medium and large sized companies. Adding more, to stay ahead and keep up with the globalized and fast paced industry, technical geeks must keep track of big trends and find ways to inculcate the significant ones in their respective enterprise’s technology portfolio. And use of recommendation engines will drive users to leverage more about the offerings from your business or websites.

Mastering Data Management in Pharmaceutical and Life Sciences

Oftentimes it has been stated that there are only two things that remains in and out with the system especially in healthcare domain that is data and patients. With the brief and sudden rise in the digitized resources in life sciences, healthcare and pharmaceutical domains, scientists and researchers all over the world find themselves at the focal point of both challenge as well as opportunity depicting to create the usable and beneficial information systems along with efficiently managing the flux and downpour of data. Recently while attending a SAS life sciences and health conference, the managing director John D. Halamka stated and shared his views about the role of IT in healthcare and life sciences verticals and how the databases are growing more and more beyond one such capacity to use them in a meaningful and relevant manner. Considering the fact that suppose there is no one else who can tackle the challenge, assume and conclude for a moment that we can and yes we will handle the data. It becomes out need of the hour and responsibility to take what is important and significant from that data and make it more purposeful and useful. That thing is called and well known as the ‘thinking data’ that is more accessible, coherent, useful, beneficial and for sure accurate and predictive.

At the prominence and cutting edge of that challenge, the critical issue lies in the data integration. Though there are many other strategies and approaches to consider and handle in a technical manner including data marts, data warehouses, federation etc. and the major focus shifted on contextualization and consolidation of the information.

A Brief about Master Data Management and Opportunities in it

Before we drill down more into the acumen of master data management as applied to life sciences, healthcare and pharmaceutical industry, let’s take a moment to think and talk about what exactly MDM is. Think of master data management as a way to manage reference data to get a clear and better idea and understand the context of our transactions. According to Ralph Kimball’s terminology, master data management solutions assist to consolidate and blend the facts with dimensions. Helping firms and enterprises by providing processes and procedures to collect, cleanse, summarize and augment the data efficiency and with sheer consistency, MDM provides apt governance and command in the ongoing maintenance and usage of data. Considering and thinking from the data perspective, the world of life sciences, health and pharmaceutical domain is frightening and alarming. With MDM pharma focused on research, drug discovery, manufacturing, operations, sales and marketing and more, there are many untold and indescribable examples of the same where firms have successfully and promisingly used data along with the technology to support decision making and preciseness. In healthcare industry, there is more complex situation in which payers, researchers, providers and patients having their advocates dealing in both public sector as well as government arena highlights the attributes and examples from health outcomes as well as clinical research of a wide range of users available for primary use of patent data.

MDM solutions is all about drafting a consistent and rational version of the truth, data and information that can be shared across the firms and organizations and used for both strategic usages as well as tactical or operational purposes. In healthcare, linking the data purposefully to patient care will undoubtedly help to perform analysis and determination and improvise patient safety and outcomes. In all, master data management solutions in pharmaceutical domain could be used for providing companies and organizations worldwide operational support and performance for conducting clinical trials more efficiently and effectively. And once you got a well defined plan, you can move further with a unifying plan for your data and could draft a roadmap for growth and success that will involve operational processes, data stewards and governance for effective implementation of master data management program.