Month: December 2018

MDM, Cloud, SaaS, PaaS, IaaS and DaaS

Henrik Gabs Liliendahl1 Comment

A while ago the trend of having the possibility to deploy a Master Data Management (MDM) solution in the cloud was covered in the post The Rise of Cloud MDM.

The latest Gartner MDM Magic Quadrant report has some numbers on that trend as mentioned in the post Who Will Make the Next Disruption on the MDM Market? Cloud based deployment has increased from 19% in 2017 year to 24 % in 2018 among Gartner’s respondents. While the organizations included here are the larger ones, I will guestimate that the cloud portion of MDM implementations are higher among midsize and smaller organizations.

As mentioned in the Gartner report there are however some confusion about what a cloud MDM solution really is. Does it come as SaaS (Software as a Service), PaaS (Platform as a Service) or IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service)? In this spectrum the vendor will provide most things in a SaaS solution, lesser stuff as PaaS and only the ability for the software to be hosted somewhere out there as IaaS.

One “as a Service” component in relation to master data you could expect in SaaS, but not necessarily in IaaS, is DaaS (Data as a Service) as for example out-of-the-box address verification and business directory integration services. A common address verification service is the one from Loqate, while Informatica though have their own solution based on their AddressDoctor acquisition. The most common business directory provider is Dun & Bradstreet.

Else the difference follows the general difference between SaaS, PaaS and IaaS which is about what the organization has to do themselves (or through system integrators) around software updates, configuration, maintenance, monitoring and more.

On the brink to 2019 my guess is that we will see more MDM in the cloud next year as well as a movement from IaaS over PaaS to SaaS. This will include more DaaS covering more master data domains not at least in the product data space – a reason of being for the Product Data Lake service I am involved with.

Cloud MDM

MDM and PIM Market Reports in 2018

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There are many market reports covering the Master Data Management (MDM) and Product Information Management (PIM) market. Below you can find 4 of these coming from who is usually considered as the more reliable analyst houses around:

Forrester has not issued a report on the MDM market recently, but in June 2018 they published their PIM wave as told on the post There is no PIM quadrant, but there is a PIM wave.

Information Difference came out with their MDM market coverage as examined in the post MDM Vendor Landscape 2018.

Constellation Research revealed their top vendors in August as mentioned in the post Making Your MDM Vendor Longlist and Shortlist.

Gartner got their MDM quadrant finished in December as flashed in the post Movements in the Gartner MDM Magic Quadrant 2018. You will find vendor provided links to the Gartner report in the post Who Will Make the Next Disruption on the MDM Market?

MDM 2018

PS: You can meet some of the included vendors (and some of the upcoming ones) on The Disruptive Master Data Management Solutions List.

The Road from PIM to Multidomain MDM

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The previous post on this blog was about the recent Gartner Magic Quadrant for Master Data Management Solutions. The post was called Who Will Make the Next Disruption on the MDM Market?

In a comment to this post Nadim observes that this Gartner quadrant is mixing up pure MDM players and PIM players.

That is true. It has always been a discussion point if one should combine or separate solutions for Master Data Management (MDM) and Product Information Management (PIM). This is a question to be asked by end user organizations and it is certainly a question the vendors on the market(s) ask themselves.

If we look at the vendors included in the 2018 Magic Quadrant the PIM part is represented in some different ways.

I would say that two of the newcomers, Viamedici and Contentserv (yellow dots in below figure), are mostly PIM players today. This is also mentioned as a caution by Gartner and is a reason for the current left-bottom’ish placement in the quadrant. But both companies want to be more multidomain MDM’ish.

PIM to MDM vendors

8 years ago, I was engaged at Stibo Systems as part of their first steps on the route from PIM to multidomain MDM. Enterworks and Riversand (the orange dots in above figure) is on the same road.

Informatica has taken a different path towards the same destination as they back in 2012 bought the PIM player Heiler. Gartner has some cautions about how well the MDM and PIM components makes up a whole in the Informatica offerings and similar cautions was expressed around the Forrester PIM Wave as seen in the comments to the post There is no PIM quadrant, but there is a PIM wave.

Who Will Make the Next Disruption on the MDM Market?

Henrik Gabs Liliendahl6 Comments

As reported in the previous post on this blog, there were some Movements in the Gartner MDM Magic Quadrant 2018.

But there was also a good deal of steadiness. Informatica still holds pole position in the race for going towards the top-right corner. Orchestra EBX, now disguised as Tibco EBX, is trailing them in the leaders quadrant. Old challengers as IBM, SAP and Stibo is watching them among the newcomers in the challengers quadrant and still as the only visionary – according to Gartner – we have Riversand.

In the niche players quadrant, we also still have Ataccama and Enterworks.

But there is still lot of free space in the top-right corner. There is still room for disruption. Gartner mentions some traditional forces still on the move being the good old 360 degree view on party data (customer, patient and the bit US biased provider) as well as Product Information Management (PIM) maybe in new wrappings as PCM or PXM.

Gartner still promotes this stuff as Application Data Management (ADM).

Else Gartner focuses on these tracks to disruption:

  • Subscription pricing – both for on-promise and cloud
  • The need for professional services – still a lot of money goes into that pit
  • Cloud based deployment – going up from 19% last year to 24 % this year among Gartner’s respondents
  • Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Informatica is one of the vendors who – against your registration – offers a free copy of the 2018 Gartner MDM Quadrant.

If you like our personal data to be in the hands of Profisee, here is their free copy of the 2018 Gartner MDM Quadrant.

Another option is to get it from Riversand. Here is their free copy of the 2018 Gartner MDM Quadrant.

MDM 2018 Disruption

Movements in the Gartner MDM Magic Quadrant 2018

Henrik Gabs Liliendahl2 Comments

Finally, the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Master Data Management (MDM) Solutions 2018 has arrived.

This year there have been some interesting movements for the included vendors.

First of all, we have 4 new vendors: Viamedici, Contentserv, Reltio and not at least Semarchy, who have jumped into a top position in the challengers quadrant

Profisee has also advanced to the challengers quadrant.

Tibco is left-bottom cornered, but is of course saved by the recent acquisition of Orchestra, who is still a leader together with Informatica.

Oracle has effectively departed the market.

Stay tuned on this blog for more reflections on the Gartner MDM Magic Quadrant.

MDM MQ 2018

The Long Tail of Product Data Synchronization

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When discussing with peers and interested parties about Product Data Lake, some of the alternatives are often brought up. These are EDI and GDSN.

So, what is the difference between those services and Product Data Lake.

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is the concept of businesses electronically communicating information that was traditionally communicated on paper, such as purchase orders and invoices. EDI also has a product catalog functionality encompassing:

  • Seller name and contact information
  • Terms of sale information, including discounts available
  • Item identification and description
  • Item physical details including type of packaging
  • Item pricing information including quantity and unit of measure

The Global Data Synchronization Network (GDSN) is an internet-based, interconnected network of interoperable data pools and a global registry known as the GS1 Global Registry, that enables companies around the globe to exchange standardised and synchronised supply chain data with their trading partners using a standardised Global Product Classification (GPC).

This service focuses on retail, healthcare, food-service and transport / logistics. In some geographies GS1 is also targeting DIY – do it yourself building materials and tools for consumers.

Product Data Lake is a cloud service for sharing product information (product data syndication) in the business ecosystems of manufacturers, distributors / wholesalers, merchants, marketplaces and large end users of product information.

Our vision is that Product Data Lake will be the process driven key service for exchanging any sort of product information within business ecosystems all over the world, with the aim of optimally assist self-service purchase – both B2C and B2B – of every kind of product.

In that way, Product Data Lake is the long tail of product data synchronization supplementing EDI and GDSN for a long range of product groups, product attributes, digital assets, product relationships and product classification systems:

EDI GDSN PDLFind out more in the Product Data Lake Overview.

Shareconomy and MDM

Henrik Gabs LiliendahlLeave a comment

The Master Data Management (MDM) discipline is something that belongs in the backbone of digitalization and enterprise architecture and therefore new ways of doing things always have a hard time in this realm. Fore sure there have been talk about big data and MDM for years, but actual implementations are few compared to ongoing traditional system of record implementations. The same will be the case with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and MDM. We will still see a lot of clerking around MDM for years.

So, I am stretching it far when working with yet a new must do thing for MDM (besides working with MDM, big data and AI).

But I have no doubt about that shareconomy (or sharing economy) will affect the way we work with MDM in the future. A few others are on the same path as for example the Swiss consultancy CDQ as presented on their page about Shareconomy for Customer and Supplier Data and The Corporate Data League (CDL).

Master Data ShareDoing Master Data Management (MDM) enterprise wide is hard enough. The ability to control master data across your organization is essential to enable digitalization initiatives and ensure the competitiveness of your organization in the future.

But it does not stop there. Increasingly every organization will be an integrated part of a business ecosystem where collaboration with business partners and through market places will be a part of digitalization and thus, we will have a need for working on the same foundation around master data.

This new aspect of MDM is also called multienterprise MDM. It will take years to be widespread. But you better start thinking about how this will be a part of your MDM strategy. Because in the long run you must Share or be left out of business.

Tibco, Orchestra and Netrics

Henrik Gabs Liliendahl4 Comments

Today’s Master Data Management (MDM) news is that Tibco Software has bought Orchestra Networks. So, now the 11 vendors in last year’s Gartner Magic Quadrant for Master Data Management Solutions is down to 10.

If Gartner is still postponing this year’s MDM quadrant, they may even manage to reflect this change. We are of course also waiting to see if newcomers will make it to the quadrant and make the crowd of vendors in there go back to an above 10 number. Some of the candidates will be the likes of Reltio and Semarchy.

Else, back to the takeover of Orchestra by Tibco, this is not the first time Tibco buys something in the MDM and Data Quality realm. Back in 2010 Tibco bought the data quality tool and data matching front runner Netrics as reported in the post What is a best-in-class match engine?

Then Tibco didn’t defend Netrics’ position in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data Quality Tools. The latest Data Quality Tool quadrant is also as the MDM quadrant from 2017 and was touched on this blog here.

So, will be exciting to see how Tibco will defend the joint Tibco MDM solution, which in 2017 was a sliding niche player at Gartner, and the Orchestra MDM solution, which in 2017 was a leader at the Gartner MDM quadrant.

Tibco Orchestra Netrics