Simplifying MDM on Cloud – A CDO guide

The data on the cloud is ramping up, and it is high time that organizations approach the master data more strategically. As cloud usage has increased considerably over the last decade, organizations should prioritize certain factors before drafting their data management strategy to obtain the most out of the cloud infrastructure. While many factors are involved, a few critical factors include resource availability, data quality, effective data integration, scalable master data repository, and quality control.

Why do CDOs need a proper master data management strategy?

A recent study shows that 25% of organizations have CDOs in place, and more organizations plan to hire CDOs. Organizations need a CDO who can carefully craft strategies and make the master data more reliable. The objective of opting for cloud services is to enjoy its benefits. A CDO can make the entire cloud experience more beneficial by strategically planning the data governance and utilization. There are many factors that a CDO should consider before crafting the strategy, like infrastructure, budget, man force, technical expertise, exemplary cloud service, vendor, etc.

A CDO’s important responsibility is to drive innovation and craft master data management strategies that can

• Leverage the existing data in possible ways
• Sustain the data quality
• Monetize by finding new ways of revenue with the data
• Ensure data security
• Establish high data governance           

The process starts with deciding where to place the data. How the data is placed and federated across the organization has a significant impact on managing the master data. For this reason, CDOs should strategically plan enterprise-wide governance and utilization of data across the organization. When operational processes run on the cloud solutions, master data is created. CDOs can extract analytics and insights from these data to evaluate the data management capabilities.

If you are a CDO and you are on the constant watch out for some direction, then this is all you need. Here are the things you need to incorporate in your master data management strategy to manage master data on the cloud seamlessly.

Authorize data sources

For a CDO, it becomes significant to decide which leading systems to use and which trusted data sources to assign when your organization uses multiple applications on the cloud. The CDO should decide which master data field will be managed and should make this decision early in the cloud software deployment strategy. Multiple applications on the cloud might use the same master data, so it is better to make this decision before it becomes complex.

Here are some points you should consider,

• On-premises MDM system – Organizations might have the critical information they should house on trusted software. A CDO’s strategy should include specific details, including the MDM system that should store sensitive information. Most organizations prefer on-premises MDM systems for sensitive data.
• Address data on both infrastructures – For organizations with multiple cloud applications, CDOs should decide which leading system will address the master data. Since the master data is spread out, you have to define an operational process to identify the master data and solve any inconsistency. This process should have a strong foundation of rules and policies. When multiple cloud software uses the same master data, overriding the master data might happen. A solid set of rules and policies can help avoid such disaster.
• Use one cloud platform to manage master data fields.
• Use Cloud MDM to improve data governance across SaaS solutions. This will help you integrate and manage master data using a single data model per master data domain.

Maintain your data quality

The data quality directly impacts business decisions, particularly for data-driven companies. Cloud platforms provide data quality managing add-ons or features to assist the data quality management. CDOs can make use of these features to maintain their data quality.

Here is a data quality checklist for you

• Account the roles and responsibilities – Perform additional checks to ensure the cloud service provider exercises the security measures stated on the contract. A CDO should clearly define the roles and responsibilities for the ongoing data quality maintenance between his quality team and cloud service provider.
• Schedule data archive – While cloud services go with a pay-as-you-go model, CDOs should consider a regular data archive activity to keep the costs under control. CDOs can also automate this process with the archive-and-delete feature that most cloud platforms provide.
• Reuse data governance rules and other policies – regularly check the data access policies of the master data on the cloud software. If the existing rules and policies meet your needs, reuse them or define the policies according to your cloud storage requirement.
• Check the data quality services – Cloud infrastructures provide data quality managing add-ons to ease the quality maintenance. Before opting for these features, A CDO should consider the ease of using the tools and the ability to integrate with other tools.
• Maintain an integrated data quality dashboard – Integrate all the results to a CDO quality dashboard for visibility. This will provide you with a comprehensive aspect of the cloud software infrastructure and on-premises.

Redefine master data lifecycle

The next thing you need to look at is the master data life cycle process. The data lifecycle management includes maintaining processes like updating, deleting, and archiving. Most cloud software executes these tasks as a part of their standard functionality if you decide to utilize it. CDOs can choose to develop a data process and software like an MDM system and integrate it with the cloud solutions to maintain the master data lifecycle.

Here is a checklist of important things

• Decide which lifecycle task you should execute on the cloud solutions.
• Redefine the existing processes to user-friendly and easy to execute processes.
• Derive rules and standards that comply with your organization for creating, updating, and archiving master data.
• Define the dos and don’ts for the data that employees or customers use to ensure the reliability and accuracy of the data.

Address data security and liability risks

The cloud offers good security and data protection. It is a CDOs responsibility to evaluate the security and privacy policies and regulations offered by the service provider. CDOs should clearly understand the data liability risks for data exposure and mitigation obligations.

Here is a checklist of points that you should include in the contract

• Privacy compliance – The CDO should have a clear picture of the GDPR – General Data Protection Regulation and other similar privacy regulations.
• Data location – Some countries have location restrictions, and where the physical master data resides should be under the country’s rules and policies.
• Data security and data transfer risk – CDOs should check the encryption and the authorization provided by the cloud service provider.
• Emergency plan – As a CDO, it is your responsibility to have a proper backup of all the data. This helps in continuing the operational processes when the cloud vendors are non-operational.
• Identity management – Organizations are widely using multi-cloud. It is essential to map the critical fields across the SaaS to have visibility over the master data.

MDM on the data is a secure, robust option that provides high scalability and reliability. On the cloud, MDM can be customized to fit your requirements and can be integrated with other software applications. With all the advantages of MDM on the cloud, it is the CDO’s responsibility to identify new ways to manage the master data effectively, keeping all the risk factors ahead.

At Saxon, we help organizations to approach their master data strategically. For any assistance on Master data management, connect with us here.