Selecting the Right MDM Approach
,As discussed previously, companies typically use three main reasons to justify an MDM implementation: (1) cost reduction, (2) risk management, and (3) revenue growth.
But once a company selects its main area of focus for its business case, how does it decide which MDM approach to implement?
Enterprise MDM represents a combination of analytical and operational MDMs. To be sure, companies can use enterprise MDM to solve virtually any data and integration problem. Furthermore, if a company does want to address all three business cases described earlier, then obviously, an enterprise MDM implementation is the way to go. For some issues, however, enterprise MDM is simply overkill. This section aims to recommend the right solution to each problem, ensuring that companies do not attempt to kill an ant with a machine gun.
Note that Table 1.1 should be used only as a general guideline. Further, each of the three business cases overlaps the others to an extent; one does not start where the other ends. One could correctly argue that by mitigating certain risks, companies lower the costs of doing business. This, in turn, raises questions of whether this should be in the cost reduction category instead. Also, better data could reduce costs and improve marketing, and consequently grow revenue.
Table 1.1 Business Rationale for Different MDM Approaches.
| Business Case | Recommended MDM Approach | Rationale |
| Risk mitigation | Operational MDM | The biggest concern is control. Implementing MDM on a data warehouse (analytical MDM) will not help, because operational data must be regulated to minimize risk and increase compliance. |
| Cost reduction | Operational MDM (maybe Enterprise MDM) | Most likely, the majority of costs are related to operations (see section on the business case for MDM). This means that an operational MDM is sufficient. However, inconsistent and incorrect data may also have a huge cost impact on wasted marketing campaigns. As a result, enterprise MDM may be required, depending on the situation. |
| Revenue growth | Analytical MDM | Revenue growth is mostly related to better strategic decisions. Analytical MDM only should suffice in most cases. |
This book will highlight how the MDM practices and techniques described can apply to any of these architectures, or in some cases, may be more relevant to just a certain type of architecture.