Data is at the heart of every company, whether that is the simple sales numbers for a mom-and-pop corner shop, the complex and intricate layers of data used by Fortune 500 companies, or the abstracted meta data of artificial intelligence startups. To make the best use of this data, it needs to be carefully managed and organised, and for that you often need specialised tools.
Data management software makes it easier for companies to organise and enhance their information assets. It helps firms find and rectify inconsistencies in the data they hold, and once organised, the data itself can provide useful insights into where the business can grow and new ways the business can flourish.
Whilst all data is useful, especially with modern processing power available to crunch the numbers and provide “big data” insights, to keep the data up-to-date, businesses will have a master data set, that all the rest of their data feeds into (the word “master” here comes from the idea of a master file from the early days of computing). It is too easy for different departments in large companies to hold different data on clients and customers, and when this data is not shared and matched, then poor decisions can be made. For example, if the sales department does not share its data with customer services, they may well try to sell goods or services to customers that have already made their purchase – which wastes time and resources for everyone involved.
Centralised master data that is efficiently synced with other data resources, means that companies can always have a single authoritative data source on which they can rely upon and keep safe and backed up – all tasks that can be handled by specialised master data management software. These tools provides companies with the ability to keep their master data authoritative, consistent, matched, and quality-assured.
Master data management is key to running a large business, and the larger that company becomes, the more important it is for there to be a single authoritative data source. It is therefore, a major concern for larger enterprises with thousands of employees, and becomes a significant issue when companies go through mergers and acquisitions, where disparate data sets are brought together. Merged Companies need to be especially careful that the two data sets do not corrupt each other, and that skilled technical staff are prepared to put the work in to match all the data together to create a single master data set as soon as possible, so the merged business can get back to serving its customers.
Photograph by Jarmoluk