Setting Up Your MDM Program

Your Data Retention Situation and Challenges

Situation

Master data domains include the most important data assets of an organization. For this data to be used across an enterprise in consistent and value-added ways, the data must be properly managed.

For a consistent view of master data domains the data should be controlled by Master Data Management (MDM).

Simple in concept, MDM is complex in practice and requires investments in governance, technology, and planning.

Master data is pervasive throughout the business and is often created and captured in highly disparate sources that often are not easily shared across business units and applications

Challenges

Approach

Make sure that your practice has the necessary prerequisites for MDM. Don’t waste time and resources before you have identified your first group of data to begin your MDM solution, and the necessary architecture, governance, and support from very senior champions to ensure the ongoing success of your MDM initiative.

Figuring out what the organization needs out of its master data is essential before you pull the trigger on an MDM strategy; alignment to strategic business needs will ensure buy-in and support through project disruptions to the business.

Finally, approaching MDM with a clear-cut blueprint that provides you with a solid plan and organized direction will help you stay adaptable when unexpected nuances of organization requirements or roadblocks crop up.

Planning Approach

Deliverables

Data Retention Policy

Successful data retention is closely linked with security governance, compliance, and data classification. Without these guardrails, most organizations struggle to establish a reliable data retention schedule.

Data Retention Schedule

A retention schedule is necessary, but having one won’t ensure retention-related risks are managed effectively. Rather, the key lies in identifying risky data processes, types, and repositories, and finding solutions to lower those risks.

Data Retention Risks

Focus your efforts on data with the highest risk levels, and work towards implementing an automated process; manual efforts will always carry the most risk.

Data Retention RACI

Some manual deletion should be expected. Very few retention programs run on automation alone. Manual deletion is manageable provided we have a plan to deal with it.

Deliverables

  • Organizations shy away from MDM because they don’t know where to start, fear the expense and disruption, and don’t truly know the benefits of the effort involved.

    MDM is valuable for all sizes of organizations; bigger ones will use the expensive tools but smaller ones can still benefit from MDM using simple tools and processes.

    Use an approach to drive real and practical MDM into your organization by starting with reference data; doing this right and first makes the rest of MDM go so much smoother because it is easy, non-contentious, and fast and builds momentum based on success.

  • This deliverable will assist you in determining your readiness for master data management (MDM) in the categories of people, processes, technology, and data. There is a questionnaire, the assessment itself, and a presentation of the results.

  • This deliverables will assist you in determining the master data domains present in your organization and the suggested domain(s) for your Master Data Management (MDM) solution. There is current state documentation, a domain selection section, and a presentation of the results.

  • This presentation has been designed to help the CDO, CIO, and other IT leaders create awareness and generate support for Master Data Management (MDM) from senior executives within their organization. We will adapt the content of this presentation to best suit the needs of the audience. This presentation will cover the importance of MDM, the benefits of MDM, and our approach to overcoming MDM challenges.

    Objectives:

    Build awareness and enthusiasm for MDM.

    Gain approval to proceed with an MDM pilot project.

    Recruit a project sponsor for the pilot project.

  • This deliverable will help you analyze your organization's data requirements, identify MDM strategies, and systematically develop a plan for your target MDM project. Based on best practice Data Management and MDM frameworks, we will evaluate the current and target performance levels for your organization's MDM.

  • This final deliverable helps organize your project findings and document your initiatives in a format that can be used to showcase your results and present the findings for review and approval by project stakeholders.

    Based on your project’s parameters and oversight, we can either use it as an internal document to centralize our work or adapt it into a presentation document for educating project stakeholders on progress and findings.

Contact us.

Avoid the pitfalls of a Master Data strategy or framework that is not in harmony with your objectives and leverage the learning from the many client experiences we benefit from. Team Incept’s experience will help you to make it right the first time.