What is a Master Data Management (MDM) system?

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Master Data Management

As a company grows, technological development does not always follow. Sometimes we find that the information we have about a product, for example, is scattered in several places. The increasing amount of data slows down time-to-market and makes it difficult to access information. Data management takes more and more time generating more and more costs. What if, in the spirit of digital transformation, we could automate these processes? Information systems that help with this are MDM (Master Data Management), which includes tools to facilitate data management and approval processes.

What is the Master Data Management - MDM (AmPnBsP) system?

Master Data Management - a system that acts as a central data repository. It contains all the data an enterprise has and supports its management. This includes technical, transactional/trade, logistics, marketing, multimedia (digital assets and their metadata) data.

All the data is combined, making it consistent and always up-to-date. When different systems use the same data, there is often data redundancy and problems determining which data is up to date. Different types of data are in different formats in different systems, making access difficult. Sometimes it happens that it is hard to pull data from some system and this is done manually.

Salespeople or people from the Marketing Department notice this. They have a problem to present an offer or advise a customer. In order to gather a complete set of information about the offered service or product, they need to collect information from different places. Master Data Managemnt allows them to automate these activities to have easy access to data from multiple sources from multiple departments. MDM not only helps reduce internal costs, but also improves the user experience and increases sales.

If you need a Master Data Management system, which one should you choose? What to look for when making such an important decision from the perspective of a company's IT ecosysytem?

Features of a modern data management system

Easy data management and modeling

The MDM system is a central data repository. Data modeling and structuring functions are needed to consolidate a lot of data in an efficient way. It is important that data management functions are easy to use, scalable and efficient even for large or complex services.

Workflows and quality management

Using workflows allows to divide the process into stages, facilitating quality control and data management (merging, unification, detection of duplicates, standardization). At each stage, data is supplemented with information from different departments or systems. Decision makers can verify completeness and validate data for specific channels or language versions

Ease of integration with other systems

Since the MDM system consolidates data, ease of connection with other systams and databases is crucial. This applies not only to downloading data from various sources, but also to publishing in multiple channels (own store, marketplace, product configurator, PDF catalog generation, etc.).

The ability to store files is also significant. Digital asset management modules are a huge help in managing what content to send to a specific distribution channel.

User confidence

A good MDM should be highly rated and current users should have confidence in it. Many awards, decorations, honors, high rankings, are an assurance of quality and satisfaction in the future.

A stable position in the market, reducing risk and giving independence from the supplier

If the technology is well established in the market there are more companies offering implementation support and more people in the labor market familiar with the technology. The ability to implement independently or switch vendors reduces the risk of failure during implementation. Large systems have the resources to develop the technology on a regular basis, so the risk of problems with maintaining outdated technology for which there are no longer specialists is reduced.

Open-source technology

Open-source software reduces costs by not requiring licensing fees or the cost of maintaining and developing the technology.

With a copyright on the code, the system is flexible and almost anything can be changed in it. Such versatility can give, on the one hand, a lot of "out-of-the-box" functions, potential modules spreading those modules and full versatility for customization.

Many people are developing the technology, and even more are implementing it in enterprises. Errors are less likely to occur, and if they do occur they are easier to spot and quicker to fix. This gives stability and security, which is especially important for large organizations storing a variety of data.

Pimcore MDM

One of the few systems containing all of the above features is the Pimcore platform. In the form of a free open-source license, Pimcore provides a wide range of capabilities, from a system for product information management (PIM), enterprise data management (MDM), digital assets management (DAM), CMS extended to user experience management (DXP) or putting up an entire online store (e-commerce).

Among the functionalities for MDM is data management and modeling, including assigning a classification system such as ETIM; workflow management; a Data Quality Management module; custom BI reports; a Data Hub to connect to any systems and much more. With all this ready to configure in a free license, users love Pimcore. According to B2B market research organization FeaturedCustomers, among MDM systems, Pimcore has the most deployments (388) and has been one of the leaders for several years. According to the Gartner Research Institute, Pimcore is the "Consumer's Choice" in the Master Data Management category for the second year in a row, thanks to outstanding ratings and high customer satisfaction. It is hard to count all the awards in the MDM category for Pimcore, and it is one part of this Platform. For medium and large companies with broad needs, this is the best system to support and automate enterprise growth.

Benefits of implementing a Master Data Management system

It reduces the cost of maintenance and data replenishment, allowing for simpler connectivity to other systems in the future. Thanks to its broad applicability, it allows flexible adaptation to changing market and requirements.

Reduces time-to-market (time-to-market). Workflows make all the steps involved in completing and validating data transparent, allowing you to optimize the process in a measurable way.

Consolidates data from different sources in different formats in one place, making it easier to standardize naming and introduce a unified product structure. By spotting inconsistent and unstructured data, it helps manage it. It also collects images and other multimedia information, linking them with product references.

Reduces information noise, streamlining customer communication and operational activities. Gives easy access to consistent and always up-to-date data for all stakeholders (potential customers, internal departments of the company).

It supports marketing activities by giving reliable data to automate the creation of marketing content, e.g. titles, descriptions. Customers with more information are more likely to buy, even more so if MDM on DXP modules and takes care of the user experience.