Master data management in an iterative approach

Master Data Management (MDM) is a young area of business informatics that concerns consolidation and centralized control of highly important business data distributed over different information systems. Leading IT companies such as IBM, Oracle, Informatica and others offer a wide range of ready-made products for master data management (MDM products). MDM product deployment involves many technical and organizational complications: it is necessary to adapt these products for the specifics of the business, modify business processes, create new data policies, solve security questions, etc. A popular approach to this task is the iterative strategy of MDM deployment, which supposes a step-by-step implementation of master data management based on the real needs of the business organization. In this paper, the notion of an MDM solution is introduced, which is the result of the deployment of MDM in an organization. It includes a specifically adapted MDM product, new regulations for working with data, trained employees, and an up-and-running process of master data management. The main result of the paper is a functional model of master data management intended for the early stages of the development of an MDM solution within the iterative deployment strategy. The purpose of this model is the representation of real business needs in terms of MDM. It is important to understand which MDM components should be implemented first. The paper describes a detailed description of the model components, as well as a portfolio of six real MDM projects analyzed from the viewpoint of the proposed model.