Business Process Management

Master Data Agility and Business Agility

Henrik Gabs LiliendahlLeave a comment

The term “data agility” was aired recently in a Forbes.com article by H.O. Maycotte. The article is called Ready, Set, Go – How Fast Is Your Data?

The article revolves around getting your data more fit. Notably, it is not about getting data fit for a known purpose of use, which is the thinking that has been around in the data and information quality realm for years. It is about having the data that makes you able to quickly adjust business strategies to meet changing customer needs.

AgileSome of this data will be master data. Master data is arguably the most difficult kind of data to work with in order to achieve data agility. This challenge was examined in the post Business Agility, Continuous Improvement and MDM.

A week ago I had the pleasure of hosting a workshop on the linkage between Business Process Management (BPM) and Master Data Management (MDM) at the Marcus Evans MDM conference in Barcelona, Spain. One of the solutions we referred to many times was to establish a common reporting approach across BPM and MDM grounded on the sentiment that you can’t manage what you can’t measure.

Setting improved agility as a goal for a master data programme is an additional approach. I am working on such a programme right now. Our executive sponsor actually wanted selling more stuff to be the goal. My promise is that the improved master data agility will lead to improved business agility that will lead to being able to sell more stuff in the future.

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Global MDM versus Local BPM

Henrik Gabs Liliendahl5 Comments

The linkage between Master Data Management (MDM) and Business Process Management (BPM) was intensively discussed at a workshop on a MDM conference organized by Marcus Evans in Barcelona, Spain today. More than 30 master data professionals from a range of large mainly European originated companies attended the workshop.

There was a broad agreement about that the intersection between MDM and BPM is growing – and should be doing so.

Google EarthOne of the challenges identified is that MDM tends to be global within the enterprise while BPM tends to be local.

The global versus local theme has frequently been mentioned as a challenge over the decade MDM has existed as a discipline. The core MDM global versus local challenges spans over common definitions, common value tables and common data models across different geographies. Having a mix of common business rules and business rules that have to be local adds to the difficulties. When applying the full impact of business process management with the variety of formal and informal organizational structures, decision rules and working culture there are certainly both wins and obstacles in linking MDM and BPM.

I think the commonly used phrase about thinking globally and acting locally makes sense in the intersection between MDM and BPM. Thinking big and starting small helps too.

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Business Agility, Continuous Improvement and MDM

Henrik Gabs LiliendahlLeave a comment

Being able to react to market changes in an agile way is the path to the survival of your business today. As you may not nail it in the first go, the ability to correct with continuous improvement is the path for your business to stay alive.

open-doorDoing business process improvement most often involves master data as examined in the post Master Data and Business Processes. The people side of this is challenging. The technology side isn’t a walkover either.

When looking at Master Data Management (MDM) platforms in sales presentations it seems very easy to configure a new way of orchestrating a business process. You just drag and drop some states and transitions in a visual workflow manager. In reality, even when solely looking at the technical side, it is much more painful.

MDM solutions can be hard to maneuver. You have to consider existing data and the data models where the data sits. Master data is typically used with various interfaces across many business functions and business units. There are usually many system integrations running around the MDM component in an IT landscape.

A successful MDM implementation does not just cure some pain points in business processes. The solution must also be able to be maneuvered to support business agility and continuous improvement. Some of the data quality and data governance aspects of this is explored in the post Be Prepared.

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Master Data and Business Processes

Henrik Gabs Liliendahl1 Comment

The intersection of Master Data Management (MDM) and Business Process Management (BPM) is a very interesting aspect of implementing MDM solutions.

We may divide this battleground into three sectors:

  • Business processes that purely consumes master data
  • Business processes that potentially changes master data
  • Business processes that purely updates master data

BPM MDM

Business processes that purely consumes master data

An example of such a business process is the execution of a direct marketing campaign. Doing this in an effective way is heavily dependent on clean and updated master data. A key capability is the ability to separate which targeted real world entities belongs to the so called “new market” and which are existing customers (or prospects or churned customers). When working with known customers the ability to intelligently relate to previously products and their categories of interest is paramount. Often knowing about the right relation between targeted parties and locations is very valuable.

When doing MDM implementations and ongoing refinement the insight on how master data are used and creates value in business processes is the starting point.

Business processes that potentially changes master data

The most commonly mentioned wide business process is the order-to-cash process. During that process especially customer master data may be affected. A key question is whether the order is placed by a new customer or a known customer. If it truly is a new customer, then effective collection of accurate and timely master data determines the successful outcome of receiving the cash based on correct credit check, correct shipping information and more. If it is a known customer this is a chance to validate and eventually update customer master data.

While customer master data often is changed through business processes having another main purpose, this is not the case with product master data.

Business processes that purely updates master data

An example is from within manufacturing, distribution and retail where we have business processes with the sole purpose of enriching product master data. With the rise of customer self-service through e-commerce the data quality requirements for completeness and other data quality dimensions have increased a lot. This makes the orchestration of complex business processes for enriching product master data a whole new flavour of Business Process Management where master data itself is the outcome – of course in order to be optimally used in order-to-cash and other business processes.

PS: If you are interested in discussing BPM and MDM alignment on La Rambla in Barcelona on the 22nd April 2015, here is the chance.

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Automate or Obliterate, That is the Question

Henrik Gabs Liliendahl4 Comments

Back in 1990 Michael Hammer made a famous article called Reengineering Work: Don’t Automate, Obliterate.

Indeed, while automation is a most wanted outcome of Master Data Management (MDM) implementations and many other IT enabled initiatives, you should always consider the alternative being eliminating (or simplifying). This often means thinking out of the box.

As an example I today stumbled upon the Wikipedia explanation about Business Process Mapping. The example used is how to make breakfast (the food part):

Makebreakfast

You could think about different Business Process Re-engineering opportunities for that process. But you could also realize that this is an English / American breakfast. What about making a French breakfast instead. Will be as simple as:

Input money > Buy croissant > Fait accompli

PS: From the data quality and MDM world one example of making French breakfast instead of English / American breakfast is examined in the post The Good, Better and Best Way of Avoiding Duplicates.

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Business in the Driver’s Seat for MDM

Henrik Gabs Liliendahl4 Comments

It has always been a paradox in Master Data Management (MDM), and many other IT enabled disciplines, that while most people agree that the business part of business should take the lead, often it is the IT part of business that is running the projects.

However, at Tetra Pak, a multi-national company of Swedish origin, MDM has been approached as a business problem rather than as an IT problem.

Yesterday I touched base with Program Manager Jesper Persson at Tetra Pak.

A main reason for Tetra Pak to focus on MDM was having a very specific business problem related to master data, not an IT problem. Taking it from there the business has been in the driver’s seat for the MDM journey.

Master data quality and related data quality dimensions are seen as triggers for the essential KPI’s related to process performance. The model for getting this right is starting with the business requirements, putting the needed data governance in place, getting on with managing master data which leads to the actual master data maintenance all as part of business process management.

Jesper is telling a lot more at the Master Data Management Summit Europe 2013 in London in the session Business in the Driver’s Seat for MDM – Integrating MDM with BPM.

MDM Summit Europe 2013

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