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Thanks to the current recession, IT managers are facing a dilemma: Despite budget cuts, enterprises do not expect reductions in service levels provided by IT shops to their customers.
OK, so how do you maintain or improve service levels, yet continue to run the business efficiently? IT decision-makers are seeking out help in this area: investments that can accelerate cost reductions and at the same time streamline business processes.
Master Data Management (MDM) software and services are designed specifically for this purpose. MDM aims to help an enterprise align its master data assets — documents, Internet and intranet sites, e-mail, spreadsheets, charts and graphs, audio, video — across multiple systems and departments. It also provides 24/7 maintainance.
An MDM platform offers a consolidated view of a company’s data assets and a consistent way of aggregating and distributing the data, which has proven to accelerate processes, projects and products through their various channels.
The main roadblock MDM has faced has been the up-front capital expense; an MDM deployment can reach up to and more than $1 million, which is out of reach for most companies that aren’t among the Fortune Global 1000.
However, this is changing due to market competition. Up until recently, the MDM market has been dominated by IBM, SAP and Oracle. The top-selling software and service packages have been IBM WebSphere Customer Center, Oracle-Siebel Customer Data Hub and Universal Customer Master and SAP’s NetWeaver MDM.
Other companies are now making a move in this space, thus bringing availability of these products to a much wider market. Teradata, which spun off from NCR in 2007, also has products on the market, along with DataFlux, i2, Initiate Systems, Kalido, Purisma and Siperian.
This article offers “Seven Ways to Reduce IT Costs with Master Data Management.” The author of this information is Ravi Shankar, Senior Director of Product Marketing at Siperian, a provider of a “flexible” master data management platform.
The following is excerpted from an original article by Mr. Shankar. Read on.