VAN SPALL INC.

How to Kick Start an MDM Program

Craig Van Spall Principal Consultant, Van Spall Inc.

craig@vanspall.com @CraigVanSpall

MDM & Data Governance Summit. Toronto. 28 June 2012

VAN SPALL INC.

About Us

• Founded 2003. Toronto-based. At First Canadian Place. • We are client centric “tailors”

• Master Data . Big Data . Open Data . Analytics .

• Marketing… Sales… Finance… Fraud…

• Incisive hands-on, bottom-up approach

• Quantifiable. Practical. Cost-effective.

• We are here to share our experiences and present V-Tips© based on our client engagements

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V-Tip 1: Record Painful Customer Experiences

• Betty Longshore (92 yrs). Notified of her death by her bank

• Weeks of red tape to prove she was alive In the News: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/03/woman-92-tells-bank-im-not-dead/ (March 17, 2012)

[Financial Services Case]

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• My internet bandwidth got capped

• How did this happen?

• “We don’t know how this contract got changed”

[Telecommunications Case]

Record Painful Organization Experiences

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• Reconciling takes days

• Analytics requires heroes

• Fraud investigations are painful

• Channel compensation fraught with dispute

• Active employees by location is challenging

• Call Center “Day One Productivity” - Really?

• Systems data sets - Who do you believe?

• Data hoarding

Record Painful Internal Experiences

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• Business has a mission. Its survival depends on managing its resources.

• Master Data Management is about managing resources.

People, places, things, etc. • If Inaccurate Repeated negative impact

• Large organization. Data duplication, inaccuracy. Buried in departments, ERP, HRIS, CRM...

V-Tip 2: Remember, it’s All About Business

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For example:

Customers. Employees. Vendors. Products. Locations. Chart of Accounts. Currencies. Languages... are all Master Data

Attribute Value

Customer Name* Craig Van Spall

Date of Sale 2012/02/14

Product Sold* Galaxy Nexus

SKU#* A1234

Shipping Address* 350 - 1 First Canadian Place, Toronto, M5X 1C1

Amount $599.99

People, Products, Locations, and Accounts

* = Master Data

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V-Tip 3: Watch both Data & Process

• Data: Structures. Versioning. Quality... • Master data is a foundation for other data

(Big Data, Analytics) and business process improvement

• Process: is different

• What data flows? To whom? When? Why?

• Both work in concert. Also in business case.

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V-Tip 4: Focus on Stakeholder Engagement

• Always, always, focus on business outcomes

• Get early executive commitment

• Attract diverse stakeholders (Speak their "language”)

• Record detailed requirements, but remember Job #1

• Start the conversation of change much in advance • “Co-develop” everything!

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V-Tip 5: Build a Strong Business Case

• Provide a compelling narrative • Record of Painful Experiences and the HL Requirements

• $(Gain) = $ (Savings) – $(MDM Program Cost) – $(Other) • $Other can be $(Loan Interest) for $(MDM Program Cost) • Pick duration: e.g. 5, 7 years

• %(ROI) = [$(Gain) - $(MDM Program Cost)]/$(MDM Program Cost)

• (NPV) = Time series of cash flow for duration of the MDM program

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$ (Savings) • Waste

• Via Lean Six Sigma approach

• Defects/Errors • Via Lean Six Sigma approach

• Regulatory Compliance • Via Audit & Compliance reports

• Satisfaction/Experience • Via lost/frustrated customers, channel staff, employees

$ (MDM Program Cost) • People • Process • Data • Technology (Infrastructure & Applications)

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V-Tip 6: Be a Good Risk Manager

• MDM programs are very risky

• Create a Risk Registry (probability vs. impact) • Items include: Change Management. Requirements. Budget $.

Data Quality. Skills. Timelines. Procurement. Infrastructure... • Items are interrelated

• Get Risk-centric

• Use Risk Registry for prioritizing and decision-making

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V-Tip 7: Agility Saves, Complexity Destroys

• Be careful of big excessive budgets

• Be practical. Avoid complexity. Push beyond high-level architecture.

• Do not get caught up in “Frameworks”. Pick and tailor practices, process, and technology to mitigate risk.

• Get good grasp of current data sources: • Excel spreadsheets. Access databases. HRIS. CRM. ERP. Financial Systems.

• Do not underestimate data interchange/integration efforts and costs

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Consolidation

MDM Hub

T2

T1

Co-existence

MDM Hub

T2

T1

Central Deployment Hub

T2

MDM Hub

T1

V-Tip 8: Have a Target Architecture

MDM Hub

Centralized

T1

T2

MDM Hub

Hybrid

T2

MDM Hub

T1

= single clean and enriched master data source = represents where data is authored

Registry

MDM Hub

T2

T1

Pointers

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V-Tip 9: Always Prototype - start small, Grow Big

• Prototyping is very important

• Client: Large Canadian telecommunications provider • Reasons for coming to us are on

the “Record Painful Internal Experiences…” (V-Tip 1)

• 2 MDM technology platforms prototyped: • A leading vendor • Another leading vendor: Software AG webMethods OneData

• Software AG OneData best “fit” the needs of the client. Differentiators in this single product are: • Multi-Domain: secure virtual MDM spaces • Data Governance: integrated in process flow • Data Quality: matching & cleansing algorithms

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OneData’s Architecture & Capabilities D

ata

Acqu

isit

ion

Dat

a M

odel

ing

Data Consolidation

Repository

Regulatory Compliance

Enterprise Integration

Business UI

Security Data Governance

Data Quality

Employee

BPM, SOA DW, Other Systems

External Services

Reporting

Deployment

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Product (“Thing”)

OneData’s Multi-Domain MDM: Secure Virtual MDM Spaces

Customer (“Party”)

Location

Supplier Account

Reference Data

Finance Improved billing / invoicing

Sales Improved Upselling

Marketing Improved segmentation

Customer Service Multi-Channel alignment

Asset

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• UI based wizards

• Data-driven workflow rules

• Trigger external events at any level

• Supports large workflow transactions

• Execute iHooks at approval/rejection event at any level

OneData’s Data Governance: Integrated in Process Flow

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OneData’s Data Quality: Matching & Cleansing Algorithms

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V-Tip 10: The Technology Platform Matters

• Think of Master Data as a Service - Serving stakeholder data needs

• Flexible. Faster. Value for money. - Remember Risk Registry tip

• Working prototype (proof of concept) is mandatory

• User portal & ease of administration

• Complex Hierarchies: Balanced. Ragged. Data Modeling.

• Data governance. Dual schemas. Workflow. Approvals. Notifications.

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The Technology Platform Matters

• Reference data: internal & external

• Data quality. Acquisition. Cleansing. Matching.

• Versioning. History. Roll-Back.

• Audit: Who did What? When? Why?

• Data Security. CRUD. Error. Fraud prevention.

• Data interchange

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V-Tip 11: Domain Tips

• People • no universal ID.. • multi-role…

• Organization • collections of collections…

• Location • GPS Co-ordinates. Historical regions…

• Product • basic parts/products. Composite products…

See Appendix for details

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V-Tip 12: Have Flexible Development & Deployment

• Pick approach that the organization is most used to • Waterfall hybrid Agile • Better towards Agile

• Be aware of programming • Binary code scripts config. • Better towards config.

• Co-configure. Co-develop. • In person. Web conference.

• Create a dynamic clearing house for issues • Leverage: Risk Registry. People skills. Technology flexibility.

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V-Tip 13: Sustain Governance

• Awareness. Oversight

• Stewards • Process. Data.

• Performance

• Decision making

• Continual improvements/investments

• Risk Management. Issue tracking

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V-Tip 14: Unleash People. Have Fun!

• Understand stakeholder/people’s aspirations

• Find a way for it to thrive

• Create a environment of trust and growth

• Deal with issues respectfully, specifically, directly

• Get the job done

• Have fun and enable others to do so too

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Recap of V-Tips©

1. Record the Painful Experiences 2. Remember, it’s All About Business 3. Watch Both Data & Process 4. Focus on Stakeholder Engagement 5. Build a Strong Business Case 6. Be a Good Risk Manager 7. Agility Saves, Complexity Destroys 8. Have a Target Architecture 9. Always Prototype - start small, Grow Big 10. The Technology Platform Matters 11. Domain Tips 12. Have Flexible Development & Deployment 13. Sustain Governance 14. Unleash People. Have Fun!

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Good luck! We’d like to continue this conversation. Contact us: Craig Van Spall Principal Consultant, Van Spall Inc.

craig@vanspall.com @CraigVanSpall

www.vanspall.com

Pick up your FREE copy of “Process-Driven MDM For Dummies” written by Software AG on your way out!

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Appendix Materials

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Characteristics of Master Data

Characteristic

Behavior Nouns, not verbs

Lifetime Several months or longer

Value Accuracy

Cardinality Hundreds or more

Volatility Not static. Not volatile.

Reuse Highly used and reused

Complexity Mid to high level

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Lean Six Sigma. Types of “Waste”.

• Defects • Overproduction of things not demanded by actual customers • Inventories awaiting further processing or consumption • Unnecessary over-processing (for example, relying on inspections rather than

designing the process to eliminate problems) • Unnecessary motion of employees • Unnecessary transport and handling of goods • Waiting for an upstream process to deliver, or for a machine to finish

processing, or for a supporting function to be completed, or for an interrupted worker to get back to work...

And a few more types of waste... • Confusion - missing or misinformation. Confusing goals & metrics. • Unsafe or unergonomic work conditions • Underutilized human potential - skills, talents, and creativity

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Domain Tips - People

• Use Surrogate keys. There is no universal ID’s for people e.g. SSN or SIN number.

• Do not model roles (customer, employee, share-holder, vendor contact, etc.). A person can be all of these.

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Domain Tips - Organization

• Like the person entity, the "organization" entity must map to specific organizations, and not their roles

• Unlike people, many organizations are collections of other organizations, and that is the way you want to manage hierarchies such as a department within a division

• Most important, the model needs to account for multiple and overlapping hierarchies

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Domain Tips - Location

• While it is tempting to view location as a set of GPS coordinates representing a particular point on our planet, this construct will not play well with the way location is defined in a business.

• The location definition is almost always an area, not a point.

• Like the organization entity, there are locations that are collections of other locations, and these collections often overlap.

• Some locations are fairly abstract; for example, financial instruments are sold with settlement terms that name a particular exchange as the "location" even though the exchange is electronic and lacks any physical boundaries.

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Domain Tips - Product

• Tie to the specific needs of the business

• Should include the raw ingredients (flour, sugar, butter, water), the consumables (gas, electricity), the services (mixing, baking, cleaning) and the result (cookies)

• Like people, the scope of products is far broader than any specific product nomenclature, whether it is ISIN (for securities) or UPC (for consumer goods)