Master Data Management is like Restaurant
Picture: dvice.com
According to Wikipedia, Master Data Management (MDM) comprises a set of processes and tools that consistently defines and manages the non-transactional data entities of an organization (which may include reference data). MDM has the objective of providing processes for collecting, aggregating, matching, consolidating, quality-assuring, persisting and distributing such data throughout an organization to ensure consistency and control in the ongoing maintenance and application use of this information.comprises a set of processes and tools that consistently defines and manages the non-transactional data entities of an organization. MDM has the objective of providing processes for collecting, aggregating, matching, consolidating, quality-assuring, persisting and distributing such data throughout an organization to ensure consistency and control in the ongoing maintenance and application use of this information.
Luckily, there is also a simple analogy for MDM that helps to understand it:
”Under new management” is a common sign in the window of a restaurant. The purpose of the sign is to tell: Yes, we know: Really bad food was served in a really bad way here. But from now on we have a new management dedicated to serve really good food in a really good way.
By the way: Restaurants are one of the more challenging business entities to handle in Party Master Data Management:
- They do change owner more often than most other business entities making them a new legal entity each time which is important for some business contexts like credit risk.
- On the other hand it’s the same address despite a new owner, which makes it being the same entity in the eyes of other business contexts like logistics.
- In many cases you may have a name (trade style) of the restaurant and another official name of the business – a variant of this is when the restaurant is franchised.
