Identifying The Challenges

Regardless of the catalyst that makes effective data management increasingly important, there are clearly issues that create costly and time-consuming challenges in enterprise information management. Common challenges that every company faces today are: data quality, creating “a single version of the truth,” and information flow. These challenges are perpetuated by manual processes to merge, transform, and translate data. While “band-aid” solutions may work in the short term, without a strong MDM strategy there are many problems that can arise, including issues around:

• Security
• Staleness of data
• Data quality
• Accessibility
• Standardization
• Human error

The result of a non-integrated and unplanned data management program is operational inefficiencies that are costly and time-consuming. Many analyst studies have shown that in the U.S. alone companies are spending in excess of $600 billion USD annually to resolve issues around data. Against this backdrop of acute need, MDM is a process and technique that deserves serious consideration.