Master & Reference Data Management
Some data is so important it deserves special attention. Customers, products, suppliers, materials, employees: master and reference data are the building blocks of your operations as well as your analytics. When they are inconsistent across systems, everything built on top inherits the problem.
In practice
The same customer exists three times in CRM, twice in ERP and once more in the service desk, each version slightly different. Which one is right? Master Data Management (MDM) answers that question structurally: it creates golden records, a single trusted version of each critical entity, by matching and merging duplicates, resolving conflicts with clear survivorship rules, and syndicating the result back to the systems and analytics platforms that need it.
Reference data gets the same treatment. Code lists, hierarchies and classifications sound mundane until two departments categorize revenue differently and management gets two answers to one question. Managed centrally, they make sure everyone counts and categorizes the same way.
MDM is as much process as platform. That is why we embed data stewardship around the tooling: who reviews match candidates, who approves new golden records, who maintains hierarchies. Governance and MDM reinforce each other, and we design them together rather than as separate projects, from the first scoping workshop to production go-live.
Master Data Management creates one trusted golden record for each critical business entity, customer, product, supplier, and keeps it trusted through matching, survivorship rules, syndication and stewardship.
The symptoms we see most often
- The same customer or product exists multiple times with conflicting details across systems.
- Order-to-cash and reporting both suffer from misaligned master data between sources.
- Onboarding a new product or supplier means re-entering data in four systems.
- A '360 view' project failed because the underlying entities never matched.
- Hierarchies for reporting are maintained by hand in spreadsheets by one heroic person.
If master data is the problem, no amount of dashboard polish downstream will fix it. MDM addresses it at the root.
Our services
MDM strategy & roadmap
Which domains first, and why: we scope by business value and feasibility, so the program earns its next phase with the results of the previous one, whether you start with customers, products or suppliers.
Platform selection & implementation
We guide selection with your architecture and ambitions in mind, then implement: data model, integration with sources and consumers, and the operational handover to your team.
Match, merge & survivorship
The heart of MDM: matching rules that find real duplicates without false positives, merge logic, and survivorship rules that decide which source wins per attribute, designed and tuned with your data.
Stewardship & operations
The human processes that keep golden records golden: match review queues, approval workflows, hierarchy maintenance, and the metrics that show the golden record is actually being used.
How an engagement runs
Strategy & domain selection
Value-driven scoping: which master data domain unlocks the most, first.
Design
Data model, matching and survivorship rules, integration architecture.
Implement & integrate
Platform build, source and consumer integration, tuning with real data.
Steward & scale
Operational stewardship live, then the next domain on a proven foundation.
Typical deliverables
What we work with
We operate as an implementation partner for Profisee, Ataccama and Informatica. Integrated with Microsoft Fabric, Databricks and your operational landscape. Technology choices always follow your architecture and ambitions.
- Profisee
- Ataccama
- Informatica
- Microsoft Fabric
- Databricks
Frequently asked questions
Which master data domain should we start with?
The one where inconsistency costs the most and integration is feasible: for many organizations that is customer (order-to-cash pain) or product/material (operations and procurement pain). Our strategy phase makes this a data-driven decision rather than a debate.
Does MDM mean replacing our operational systems?
No. MDM sits alongside them: it consumes their data, creates the golden record, and syndicates trusted data back. Your ERP and CRM keep doing their jobs, just with better data.
How long does an MDM implementation take?
A first domain typically goes from scoping to production within several months, depending on source complexity and data condition. We scope the first increment deliberately: one domain, the critical attributes, the key consumers, live.
Know where you stand in a few weeks
The fastest first step is a Data Governance Maturity Scan: an objective view of your current maturity, a benchmark against peers, and a prioritized roadmap.