A retail supplier and buyer of neuro-surgical and bio-medical equipment with a growing customer base, product lines, partners and vendors needed a 360-degree view of its core information asset entities surrounding its business, its transactional information surrounding such entities, and integrated data for business analytics. The inability to get this critical information was prolonging customer service time and product management time, affecting overall time to market products and thus the bottom-line. Following the OmniSys MDM strategy, the ITeS provider created the MDM platform with services and rules to unify, cleanse, standardize, de-duplicate and govern master data. This implementation has not only brought flexibility in information management and propagation between various information management applications but has also given more control to clients to manage data and get a 360-degree reporting view around each critical master entity. These master entities would have data captured on critical dimensions which are less likely to change very frequently. Based on the type of business and information entities that needed to be mastered, some of the tangible benefits to businesses of the MDM initiative were: Decreased Call-to-Order Processing Duration, Reduced Shipping, Supply Chain Improvements, Improved Revenue, Improved Call Center Performance, Reduced Time to Market, and Invoicing Errors, Faster Collection of Product, Vendor, Customer and Price List Information, Regulatory Compliance, Better Data Integration, and Reduced IT efforts to mitigate data quality risks.
KEY DRIVERS FOR MASTER DATA MANAGEMENT (MDM)
Master Data Management is the unique combination of managing process, people and technology that can help these organizations achieve and maintain a single, consistent view of business-critical data entities across the enterprise information systems.
A competitive market often drive firms to try and utilize their core information assets more effectively to achieve their strategic goals. Globalization, mergers and sometimes even acquisitions are forcing the need for these organizations to have consistent information assets synchronized across the data repositories panning different information systems. Regulatory compliance is highlighting the need to have the data tagged with all its peripheral enablers (policies, definitions, domain, business rules, metadata, quality, governance, ownership, security, etc.). Business Analytics won’t thrive without measurable, accurate, consistent, cleaned and reliable data. This drives the criticality of MDM solutions when business enterprises have numerous systems processing their information assets.
THE BENEFITS
Finance: Efficient and accurate financial reporting and risk assessment along with enhanced ability for regulatory compliance
Marketing : Single view of customer, better customer insight and interactions to provide uniformity in customized services and ability to recognize cross-sell and up-sell opportunities
Manufacturing : Enables faster launch of targeted products and improved operational efficiency,
Healthcare : True patient intelligence from Patient 360′ reports by linking and matching patient records, enforcement of information security, privacy and improved clinical information management
MDM SOLUTION OVERVIEW
OmniSys provides a complete, turn-key approach to define, implement, and support multiple master data management solutions. It combines the technology skills along with the advisory specific subject matter expertise with a world class methodology and project management capabilities to ensure timely completion of MDM projects and return on investment.
In business, master data management (MDM) comprises the processes, governance, policies, standards and tools that consistently define and manage the critical data of an organization to provide a single point of reference. Master data management has the objective of providing workflows for aggregating, matching, collecting, cleaning, consolidating, persisting, quality-assuring, and distributing such data throughout an enterprise to ensure consistency and control in the ongoing maintenance and application use of the data assets. In computing, a master data management tool can be used to support master data management by removing duplicates, standardizing data (mass maintaining), and incorporating rules to eliminate incorrect data from entering the system in order to create an authoritative source of master data. Master data are the products, accounts and parties for which the business transactions are completed. The root cause problem stems from business unit and product line segmentation, in which the same customer will be serviced by different product lines, with redundant data being entered about the customer (aka party in the role of customer) and account in order to process the transaction. The redundancy of party and account data is compounded in the front to back office life cycle, where the authoritative single source for the party, account and product data is needed but is often once again redundantly entered or augmented. For example, records of a Customer entity for a B2C retail company may have different addresses captured for the same address type. Again the same customer may be represented in multiple data hubs as being separate customer records. The proposed solutions deliver the right business value to all business stakeholders and help the clients meet their ROI expectations.
DISCOVERY : Assess business need for MDM and determine organizational readiness, Gather high level requirements, Develop solution architecture options and Evaluate and select technology (optionally conduct a Proof-Of-Concept)
IMPLEMENTATION : Gather detailed business requirements, Develop detailed logical, data & technical architecture, Configure infrastructure & software, Design, construct and test solution and Deploy solution, transition and knowledge transfer
IMPLEMENTATION : Support & maintenance and Enhancements and new functionality.
MDM-MACROSCOPE-SOLUTION
In use for more than 25 years, MDM-Macroscope-Solution is an integrated suite of business and IT methods that helps OmniSys and our clients maximize the value of business transformation initiatives. Macroscope helps implement and manage organizational change throughout the entire business transformation lifecycle. This includes strategic planning, business and IT architecture development, application and systems development, project deployment and maintenance, and program and project management.
We have specifically adapted this methodology for the delivery of MDM and BI solutions. The resulting benefits include:
Selecting and prioritizing MDM domains that are most strategically aligned, low risk and of highest business value
Predictability for reduced risk and improved information asset management
Solution-specific templates and re-usable architectural patterns to speed up implementation
Common tool utilization across multiple locations, making distributed teams more effective
MDM SERVICE VALUE PROPOSITIONS
MDM industry experience as a leading systems integrator vendor
Ability to provide advisory, consulting, implementation and sustainment services in a technology agnostic manner
Skilled, experienced resources with expertise in leading MDM technologies
Partnership and alliances with leading MDM platform vendors
Solution specific approach and process based on proven frameworks and accelerators
Industry aligned MDM Standards & Best Practices
Ability to define and implement best practices in the Data Governance Framework
Supported by full range of solutions and services(Business Intelligence, ERP, CRM, Accounting, Auditing systems)
Flexible approach that delivers maximum value for clients’ MDM program and support after implementation
In over 5 years of delivering successful Business Intelligence and Data Management solutions, the OmniSys outcome-based thinking has been established as a key success factor for driving master data management projects. With a full understanding of the critical business objectives and their alignment with the solutions’ features and strengths, their advisory services practice can render their expertise to bring in the benefits, risk, value management skills surrounding MDM solutions to assist firms in solidifying the requirements, help develop the financial RoI centered cases followed by recommending the right solution that will meet your business needs. Our broad experience and best practices, coupled with accelerators, a widely recognized world-class methodology, allow them to maintain a the competitive edge. A collaborative approach between their implementation team and the client’s CIO team ensures smooth transition and knowledge transfer to the client organization after a successful implementation.
Question: Conduct a Requirement Analysis for the described solution for customer type entities for an enterprise operating in the organized retail market in India. What would be the type of data which may need to be captured? After the Requirement Analysis, identify key requirements and the metrics/criteria which you may use for conducting an effectiveness audit of the system.
Disclaimer: This is a case study for teaching master data management in university classrooms. This case may bear resemblance to actual solutions, only to highlight the best practices and industry specificity of the needs. No attempt is being made to promote or criticise any solution of any vendor.
Filed under: Technology 
