Master Data Management with DATAROCKET Core or:
The search for Mr. Armstrong
Master Data Management is gaining in importance across many industries and companies. Regardless of the size of the enterprise, companies need a reliable overview if they deal with a large amount of data relating to products, suppliers, (spare) parts, materials, or customers.
Many different locations and departments, as well as a complex company history, leave you with a heterogeneous IT infrastructure. The various parts of the business use a variety of different IT systems, each of which retains data to meet the requirements of the respective department. This situation makes it hard to maintain an overview. Information in regard to a specific data record is stored in different systems. However, these records may not be synced with one another and may even be contradictory in the worst-case scenario.
A simple example: Who is really Mr. Armstrong?
Master data management with DATAROCKET Core: How to find your Golden Records
Let’s take a closer look at a fictitious company. To store and process data, the sales department uses system A while the marketing department uses system B. Both departments interact with Mr. Armstrong, a potential customer. Mr. Armstrong now informs the marketing department that he has moved. This update is made in the database of system B, allowing the marketing department to continue to reach Mr. Armstrong without interruption.
However, the corrected data record is only stored in marketing software system B, and it is in a format that is unsuitable for distribution to software system A. This means that the correct data record can only be used in the marketing department and is out of reach of the sales department. Mr. Armstrong’s incorrect address causes problems in the sales process and ultimately results in higher costs.
The solution is the “golden record”
An MDM tool such as our Master Data Management software DATAROCKET Core easily solves this problem by bringing together the data records of all departments in real-time, comparing them with each other, and ultimately consolidating them into a golden record. As a single, complete, and reliable source of master data, it serves as a trusted reference for the entire company. The golden record contains the best possible and most up-to-date information in regard to a data record, regardless of the various sources on which it is based. The MDM tool would immediately detect Mr. Armstrong’s change of address in one of the source data records. The new address is checked for correctness and completeness either automatically – using rules for field matching – or in a manual workflow, and then stored in the golden record.
