March 20, 2020 
Look at most successful businesses, enterprises or retail stores; the leading reason behind their success is their master data management solutions. Data is known to be one of the valuable assets this 2020. All thanks to the technological revolution, there has been data generated at an unprecedented pace.
What power does data hold?
Technology has advanced, so have the number of enterprises that are thoroughly maintaining databases. The reason being, it has abundant power; how powerful can master data management prove to be for enterprises like yours?
- Speeds up decision- making process
- Holds astounding value; you never know what kind of data one can collect, manage and interpret
- An invaluable source for business return insights
- Objectively identify customers targeting for supply chain operations
In simple words, data has the power to identify, gather, process and most importantly, analyze raw information you generate from multiple sources like websites and more.
Amazing master data management for any enterprise can prove to be a survival and retention factor in the business landscape.
Do enterprises like yours have the bandwidth to manage data?
Retail brands, enterprises and other companies tend to find it extremely difficult to:
- Seamlessly manage data
- Build a corporate culture when it comes to data strategy and
- Reconsider prime approaches regarding the procurement of data and its management
Guiding Principles for Enterprise Master Data Management
After extensive research, here are the 5 guiding principles of data management & data analytics for enterprises of all sizes and industries:
Design Custom Data Management Strategy
The way your enterprise defines organizes, integrates and procures data is going to be the defining factor for your business returns and visibility success. All that needs to be done here is, maintain previous and generate relevant data. But, how?
Take a strategic approach for data management when it comes to gaining success for your data initiatives.
The beauty of data management strategy once effective is that it can integrate hardware, software, workflow, culture and other aspects which represent data management in an enterprise.
As an enterprise who’s looking for master data management success, you need to
- Identify what data your company needs/ may require in the future; followed by
- Which processes are giving desired results; then
- Resources & technologies which can be utilized for effective and quality data management
Understand Ownership & Supervision of Data
By now, it must be understood that there can be multiple sources of data for different organizations. How to understand ownership and supervision of data? The answer is simple with data integration, make sense out of your data, gain insights and drive profits. That’s a guarantee if done right!
Remember, data integration may be a challenging factor. Your data analyst needs to know which data can offer value to what extent. More importantly, he needs to know who has the legal access to the dataset and who does not for utmost security. Ownership to data is given to the company that commissions it and not the one who collects it. As an enterprise owner, you need to appoint data supervisors too in order to maintain the existing dataset with utmost safety. Remember, data is power; keep it well managed and secure.
Strategy for Metadata
Questions like how data can be stored, tracked and documented arise here. At the end of the day, data access can be granted only when it can be documented, tracked and optimally made use of. This is exactly the point where metadata strategy becomes important.
In simple words, metadata is a GPS system, allowing employees to navigate through data conveniently and keep a tab on changes that occur too.
Here’s how metadata can be managed and effectively made use of:
- Develop standard procedures based on your company policies
- Promote a detailed and well- designed approach towards metadata wherein, no duplication or fake data can be inserted
Data Quality Management & Governance
Multiple studies have shown that enterprises have been able to increase efficiency by 37% because of Data alone. Relevant data assure positive outcomes for decision-makers; they need trusting data too, right?
Create data regulations for your enterprise for an optimum database. Different sets of data within a database can be used in combination to achieve business goals however, all this information needs to be documented and periodically tested against standard ways for knowing what’s best for the brand.
Here’s how you can manage data quality and governance most effectively:
- Ask employees to justify master data management; they will know its importance and never tamper with it!
- Extensively give importance to data management based on team needs
- Run data management audits quarterly for understanding how disciplined people accessing it are
- Make sure data is stored, always maintained and taken care of
Streamline Data Usage
A compilation of the above four principles, streamlining data usage is extremely important for an enterprise to grow in a stable fashion. Here, the objective is to help you make the most out of your data. As of 2020, it’s exceptionally critical to make sense out of your data and truly own it!
How you use your data defines its value. In order to spend minimal and own an efficient database strategy and information, make sure you train your team well. They should be prompt in the way data can be used carefully for showing stakeholders or any other reason.
On an ending note
Make sure your in-house data experts accurately define datasets, formats, standards and more. This will in- turn help review workflow, optimize data processing and maintain data quality.
About data privacy and security, standardized rules, definitions and procedures can be adopted for regulating data access and giving official data management instructions.
Data security will be all set once your team dedicatedly follows the above guidelines.
