what is master data management

i want know clearly abut MDM in SAP.

Former Member · ‎2007 Dec 14

hi,

1. Is management of master data strategic to your enterprise?

Master data has always been high importance to organizations but many times people don’t pay much attention to maintaining and managing master data properly. One need to ensure that management and maintenance of master data is not only of high importance to the enterprise but also strategic in terms of having reliable and accurate information management. Master data management strategy should encompass but not limited to achieving accurate and reliable master data, governance, maintaining quality of master data and ultimately achieving better results.

2. What is master data for your enterprise?

Generally, master data comprise of customer, supplier, product, employee, etc but is not limited to only these objects. For Oil and Gas industry, master data object can be oil well, while for food and drug industry it could be chemical composition. One need to define master data for the enterprise and should specify exclusively why.

3. Where and how master data is being used in your enterprise?

Once the definition of master data is clear, it is important to find out where and how master data is being used in the enterprise. One can not restrict its view to application only because sometimes use of master data could be beyond application boundaries. E.g. product which may get originated in an application can be used in a marketing campaign and may have totally different attributes than application could have. This is very important exercise of overall MDM implementation because this will define characteristics of the master data object. Once all the attributes and characteristics of master object are clear, one can start linking them to software applications.

4. Do you have master data management processes?

Whenever this question gets asked, one responds back with return question – ‘do I need one’? And answer is always yes. Many times people get confused between a process and a workflow. Every organization has processes and sure they have for master data management as well. Question needs to be asked around – is current process to manage and maintain master data enough? Having well defined process - from creation of master data to its retirement through retention and maintenance over its lifecycle is very important and should be well thought of during MDM implementation.

5.How do you maintain master data quality in your organization?

What does it mean? We don’t maintain it, our IT systems maintain quality of data – this is the most common answer I had received so far. But, I must admit that some companies are ahead on this aspect than others and I realized, based on statistical data that was presented to me that enterprise needs to think of having processes and procedures to maintain data quality.

6. Have you implemented Master data governance?

Governance is a hot topic everywhere, from corporate governance to IT governance, it has taken important turn in the way we manage things. Having an authoritative body who defines policies and procedures, implementation of those policies and procedures and then monitoring them through out is a general purpose for governance. The same applies to master data management and it can be part of overall IT governance or information governance but one should thought about as overall MDM strategy.

In SAP MDM:

you have Standard Master data Repositories: 1. Customer 2. material 3. vendor 4. Employeee.

and with master data we have standard IT scenarios.

follow the links:

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_mdm550/helpdata/en/71/14b6421a75da11e10000000a155106/frameset.htm

hope this may help you,

regards,

srinivas

Former Member · ‎2007 Dec 14

Hi Naresh,

Present IT landscape :

Large companies often have IT systems that are used by diverse business functions (e.g., finance, sales, R&D, etc.) and span across multiple countries. These diverse systems usually need to share key data that is relevant to the parent company (e.g., products, customers, and suppliers). It is critical for the company to consistently use these shared data elements through various IT systems.Master data management is used for data integration in such case..

MDM also becomes important when two or more companies want to share data across corporate boundaries.

For eg. BI people want material master as well as vendor master to generate Purchase order.

Data Governance:

Apart from integration it is used for data governance.Like consider the following scenario:

A large automobile company is having two plants one is manufacturing jeep and another scooter

Identification of new material & procurement of the material is managed on plant basis there respective R & D & Purchasing Organization. However in actual usage some of the parts are common for both types of vehicles but due to different nomenclature or description of material new material is created in one plant although same material already exist in another plant.

Similar is the case with a vendors where same vendor exist in two different plant due to some change in name of vendor or address details.

Problems arise because of above case:

1) Duplicate material & vendors are being created

2) Poor inventory management & high inventory cost

3) Production getting suffered in one plant for no material although same material available in another plant but with different code

4) In purchasing excess paperwork due to duplicated vendors such as creation of Quotations , Info records , Purchase Orders & follow ups.

5) Loose advantage of price negotiation & terms & conditions

6) Incorrect Reporting

Thus MDM helps here to remove duplicates , enriches data so as to get correct status of material & vendor and maintain one centralised master data in the organisation level,so plants can operate effectively and efficiently .

If u find this helpful then do reward points for the same.

Regards :

Neethu

Former Member · ‎2007 Dec 14

Hi,

Master data is the core data of an enterprise that exists independently of specific business transactions and is referenced in business transactions. It builds the foundation for the smooth execution of business processes and well-informed business decisions. Master data represents business objects rather than business transactions and is rarely changed over a long period of time. The following objects are among a company’s most important master data objects:

● Product

● Customer

● Supplier

● Employee

SAP MDM

SAP Master Data Management (SAP MDM)enables master data on customers, partners and products to be consolidated and harmonized across the enterprise, making it available to all staff and business partners. A key component of SAP NetWeaver, SAP MDM ensures data integrity across all IT systems.

The SAP NetWeaver Master Data Management (SAP NetWeaver MDM) component of SAP NetWeaver creates the preconditions for enterprise services and business process management. The functionality represents customers, products, employees, vendors, and user-defined data objects in unified form. With SAP NetWeaver MDM, customers can manage master data and supplemental content, such as texts, PDF documents, high-resolution images, or diagrams in a central business information warehouse.

SAP Master Data Management (SAP MDM) is a component of SAP's NetWeaver product group and is used as a platform to consolidate, cleanse and synchronise a single version of the truth for master data within a heterogeneous application landscape. It has the ability to distribute internally and externally to SAP and non-SAP applications. SAP MDM is a key enabler of SAP Enterprise Service-Oriented Architecture. Standard system architecture would consist of a single central MDM server connected to client systems through SAP Exchange Infrastructure using XML documents, although connectivity without SAP XI can also be achieved. There are five standard implementation scenarios:

Content Consolidation - centralised cleansing, de-duplication and consolidation, enabling key mapping and consolidated group reporting in SAP BI. No re-distribution of cleansed data.

Master Data Harmonisation - as for Content Consolidation, plus re-distribution of cleansed, consolidated master data.

Central Master Data Management - as for Master Data Harmonisation, but all master data is maintained in the central MDM system. No maintenance of master data occurs in the connected client systems.

Rich Product Content Management - Catalogue management and publishing. Uses elements of Content Consolidation to centrally store rich content (images, PDF files, video, sound etc.) together with standard content in order to produce product catalogues (web or print). Has standard adapters to export content to DTP packages.

Global Data Synchronization - provides consistent trade item information exchange with retailers through data hubs (e.g. 1SYNC) Some features (for example, workflow) require custom development out of the box to provide screens for end users to use.

Regards

Nisha

Former Member · ‎2007 Dec 14

When we think of systems in the corporate environment usually we describe the transactional data that these systems are built around. Plenty of attention is given to the transactional data, but the reference data (master data) is ignored until something goes wrong with a transactional report or until two department heads can't answer the questions for the president of the division. The volume of records for master data is typically much smaller than transactional data and unlike transactional data, changes rather slowly. As a result there seems to be less of an urgency to provide a structured solution to maintain this data. When you consider the lack of business priority, the complexity of external data sources and the need to share this information throughout the corporation, the incentive to undertake the development of a core master system becomes less appealing. However, the return on investment (ROI) for implementing a master data management strategy is clearly high. It would be of value even if it only allows all departments within the corporation to consistently interpret the information they get without spending three months of analysis to find the answer to a critical strategic question, but a master data management strategy can yield so many other benefits.

In an ideal world, a master data management strategy includes data (structured and unstructured), process, workflow, collaboration, definition, maintenance facilities, documentation and distribution mechanisms. Master data is a shared resource across all of the systems within the enterprise visible to the business managers. It includes a robust interface to support the browsing of dimensional reference data as well as comparisons of various code structures. The data structures are completely exposed to the business users to help them understand the structure of the technical and business resources within in the company. The user is able to build and maintain their own summarized view of the dimensional hierarchy which can then be utilized in other processes as well as support the management, maintenance, collaboration and documentation features. Implementing a robust master data strategy can yield tremendous benefits to the business and provides not only a high ROI but actually lowers the total cost of ownership (TCO) of other systems that leverage this data.

follow the links for more specific inputs

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_mdmgds55/helpdata/en/43/D7AED5058201B4E10000000A11466F/frameset.htm

(This is a help link from SAP, gives a complete documentation of SAP MDM).

This link is for Complete SAP MDM related stuff

Former Member · ‎2007 Dec 14

Hi naresh reddy ,

SAP NetWeaver MASTER DATA MANAGEMENT

SAP NetWeaver Master Data Management (SAP NetWeaver MDM) is an enabling foundation for enterprise services and business process management -- providing a single version of the truth for customer, product, employee, supplier, or user-defined data objects.

Working across heterogeneous systems at disparate locations, SAP NetWeaver Master Data Management ensures cross-system data consistency through interactive distribution. It integrates business processes across the extended value chain, delivering features and functions to enable:

Master data consolidation -- Consolidate master data for companywide analysis and reporting. SAP NetWeaver Master Data Management consolidates and cleanses master data objects from disparate systems. After consolidation, it stores information from different systems in a centralized repository. Related rich content can be included to augment the data store.

Synchronization and distribution of master data -- Enable consistent data maintenance and distribution to ensure permanent harmonization of master data. Using global attributes, you can ensure that all systems receive the same master data during distribution -- and enrich the distributed data objects with additional attribute values in the target systems. Distribution can be controlled, visible, and traceable, with active status management at each distribution step.

Centralized management of master data -- Supports companywide quality standards by ensuring that central control of master data begins as soon as the data is created. Centrally created master data can subsequently be distributed to client systems as required using interactive distribution.

Administration of master data -- Manage master data without custom code. A powerful interface supports administrative tasks such as data exception handling and assignment of role-based access to business processes and information. Data managers use the interface to configure data source merging, business rules, and distribution details to downstream applications.

Management of internal content -- Collect and centralize all your content -- including parametric information and rich content such as images, paragraphs of text, PDF documents, and organizational intelligence about content -- in an enterprisewide repository.

Catalog search -- Deploy intuitive interfaces that help you locate items internally, publish Web catalogs on e-commerce storefronts and in supplier enablement programs, and integrate easy-to-search catalogs into e-procurement solutions -- all from a centralized repository, and all at speeds surpassing normal SQL-based queries.

Print catalog customization -- Disseminate product information directly from a centralized catalog repository to popular desktop publishing programs, and automatically generate fully formatted and populated page layouts.

Multichannel syndication of product catalog content -- Publish restructured and reformatted extracts or incremental updates of your product catalog content -- and distribute them to trading partners in several delimited text and XML formats -- on an unscheduled or regular basis.

Business process support -- Enable communication in a heterogeneous environment, and insert master data into other systems.

Business analytics and reporting -- Leverage synchronized data for reliable analysis and accurate reporting.

The following websites will clearly explain u wt is MDM. These websites contain PDF & PPT presentations:

SAP Netweaver MDM Overview

http://www.asug.com/DesktopModules/Bring2mind/DMX/Download.aspx?TabId=66&DMXModule=370&Command=Core_...

MDm

http://www.asug.com/DesktopModules/Bring2mind/DMX/Download.aspx?TabId=66&DMXModule=370&Command=Core_...

SAP Netweaver MDM Overview

https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/b09b548d-7316-2a10-1fbb-894c838d...

SAP NETWEAVER MDM Leverage MDM in ERP Environments - An Evolutionary Approach -

https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/4059f477-7316-2a10-5fa1-88417f98...

Master Data Management architecture patterns