Mastering MDM is mandatory for digital transformation success
Digital Transformation can mean a lot of different things to different people. But for everyone it means dealing with more data than ever before.
Industry 4.0, cloud, robotics, “big data,” artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain and similar technological advancements are changing the very nature of commerce across every business sector in every market. The one constant in all this disruption is data. To embark on a digital transformation journey that data needs to be mastered. Master data is the vital difference between scaling or failing in this time of business disruption and non-stop data.
All businesses tend to move on a similar path on their digital transformation journey from a legacy state of multiple silos, toward an integrated enterprise embracing relationship centricity then outward as a part of a connected ecosystem in a trust network.
When businesses strive to drive innovation and progress, they continue to grow in complexity that fosters fragmentation. The explosion of persona-based tech stacks (ERP, CRM, CDP, ABM, FinTech, MarTech, AdTech, etc.) may offer unprecedented insight, but inherent in each new app is yet another silo.
In each silo there is the potential to produce yet another version of the same data. Separate departments, regions, channels and go-to-markets naturally spawn separate data. These multiple systems and workflows create disparate data sources that lack internal standards. Vital relationship types like customer, vendor, partner and prospect often have differing definitions across different parts of the same organization.
Most enterprises are in some form of this legacy state. This does not mean they don’t have modern technology and infrastructure. This simply means that they have not taken the holistic steps necessary to put relationships at the center of their processes – both strategically and systematically.
All business is based on relationships. Although many organizations think they are “customer-centric” their data can hardly support that notion. Ask yourself: do your systems know what your people know?
To create the innovative experiences that are at the core of digital transformation, enterprises must first embrace being relationship centric. Relationship centricity can be achieved by creating a horizontal view of your relationships across the entire enterprise built upon standard definitions.
A familiar approach involves the creation of a 360-degree view of customer, vendor, supplier or partner as well as product, brand and services. This idea of being centric about relationships across an integrated enterprise is only achieved by establishing and governing a common version of the truth about those relationships.
A trust network is how you engage, how you interoperate, and how you seamlessly communicate with partners across your value chains.
