Data Advocacy: How to Build the Business Case for Master Data Management at Your Organization

Master Data Management (MDM) is critically important for the long-term success of any business that wants to thrive in our fast-moving, ever-changing environment. But as a highly complex and sometimes amorphous topic, it can also be difficult to push for buy-in and adoption across your organization.

A recent webinar from Syndigo showcased the value of MDM and PIM (Product Information Management) and detailed four powerful ways to advocate for it at your business.

What is Master Data?

Master Data is the core data that runs through an enterprise’s digital ecosystem.

It covers an enormous amount of data, typically relating to customers, suppliers, products, parts, employees, materials, locations, recipes, and more.

Master Data forms the foundation that enables enterprises to build analytical capabilities and manage their business. Business functions across the organization, from Marketing to Operations to Finance, rely on Master Data to make informed decisions, plan effective strategies, and measure their success.

Due to the importance and complexity of this information, many resources, technologies and disciplines have evolved around Master Data Management to get the most value from it.

Identifying Where MDM and PIM Have the Biggest Impact

When thinking about how to introduce and implement MDM into your organization, it’s useful to consider where and how it will have the greatest impact. These are the functions, departments, and people that will be impacted most by this solution (and also have the most to gain!).

Syndigo’s Ben Rund called out areas of the business that will be heavily influenced by MDM in the webinar. Using Gartner’s Maturity Matrix, he identified key MDM impacts on a spectrum of Risk vs Reward.

Source: Gartner, Articulating MDM Value to the Business

The many benefits of a well-implemented MDM system can be associated into three broad categories:

How you RUN the business.
This covers benefits associated with improving or streamlining core business functions. Though these might not be the most “exciting” perks of MDM, they influence some of the most critical day-to-day operations across the organization.

How you GROW the business.
This includes functions essential to staying ahead of the competition, increasing sales, and improving retention and loyalty.

How you TRANSFORM the business.
High-level and larger-scale initiatives that expand your overall presence in the marketplace or fundamentally change the way you do business internally and externally.

Watch the clip below for a more detailed explanation of how to share this context within your organization.

Four Ways to Express MDM Business Value

Though there are many benefits to adopting Master Data Management solutions, it can be difficult to express their importance and value. It’s useful to be able to distill a business case down to a compelling argument for different audiences. Consider using one or more of these approaches when pitching MDM to your organization:

The ‘Simple One’
Sometimes the easiest way to share the value of adopting MDM is to simply express what will happen if you don’t.

Rund explained the inspiration for this approach came from a conference Q&A panel he attended:
“I actually learned that lesson while attending an eCommerce conference…a PIM program owner sat on the panel stage and he was asked in the Q&A by someone in the audience, How did you get the buy in from your CEO? How did you get the budget? Why do you need a PIM program in your organization? His answer was, if we don’t do it, we are dead. That was his quote. It was really drastic, and very simple words.”

Watch below for a complete explanation of using the ‘Simple One’ approach.

The Story Teller
Sometimes making a persuasive case isn’t so simple. One way to share a compelling pitch for MDM is through storytelling. You can use real examples and use cases from other industries, your own marketplace, or even within your own day-to-day experiences.
One example Rund gives is a success story of great PIM and MDM coming together in his own life. When on a business trip, he got an email from a brand encouraging him to reward himself after a recent run. The message included timely, highly-relevant information: a lookbook with appealing products, a special offer, and even a map to the address local store—a compelling experience all enabled by PIM and MDM. This combination of the “right information, at the right time, at the right person,” in his words, was enough to compel him to go make a purchase.

Watch both of the example stories from the webinar below for more inspiration.

The Benchmark Lover
With the stakes so high, not everyone can be swayed with just anecdotes. “Not everyone loves the stories, some people love data,” Rund explained. “Some people love facts, statistics and benchmarks.”

For people who want the analytical proof, there’s no shortage of powerful facts and figures that show the value of MDM. For example, here’s some compelling research from iXtenso:

Find even more high-impact statistics, from general market research to category-specific changes, in the webinar clip below:

The Analyst Approach
Finally, Rund suggested a methodical approach that pulls in the authority and expertise of organizations regularly involved implementing or monitoring the success of MDM programs: for instance, an analyst or consulting specialist. For example, here’s how Gartner recommends building your MDM case:

Watch below for a full explanation of this approach:

How to Build an MDM Business Case for C-Suite Priorities

MDM is a major step forward for an organization, one that often requires buy-in from top-level leadership to be successful. When making a push for MDM, it’s important to be able to explain how this is going to solve C-Level challenges across the organization.

This approach boils down to mapping MDM directly to your senior leadership’s objectives. Because those objectives can be numerous and broad, it may require some thought and work to cover everything.

Example C-Suite Priority Map

But that effort will result in the most persuasive argument for initiating the organization-wide improvement and transformation enabled by MDM and PIM working together.

You’ll find in-depth advice, examples and resources for speaking to C-Suite priorities in this portion of the webinar:

The Fast Track for Seamless PIM and MDM Adoption

Master Data Management solutions connect products, customers, employees, suppliers, physical locations and more in a single cohesive and easy-to-manage data ecosystem.

If you’re ready to unlock this power at your organization, or need help in understanding how to share its value with internal stakeholders, Syndigo can help. Learn more or click here to get a tour of everything MDM is capable of.