Large organizations typically have numerous operational systems that each store and produce competing versions of master data such as "customer" and "product".

Master data hubs is one approach to breaking down these application silos and producing a unified version of "golden copy" master data e.g. a common source of customer account information or product codes.

The master data management (MDM) market has seen a battle of ideas over the last couple of years between "cross domain" approaches and specialist hubs for separate classes of master data, particularly "customer" and "product".

This war is now warming up. Vendors from a heritage of dealing with customer data are typically strong on matching potentially duplicate customer information, often in real-time, and often have high performance hubs capable of dealing with large volumes of customer data.

Businesses are confronted by the ongoing challenge of managing fluctuating commodity costs. Controlling direct spending across regional and global manufacturing locations can provide significant cost savings to any enterprise.

While companies are continually creating and maintaining master data, many lack data standards and models as well as governance mechanisms. The success of strategic initiatives depends on the creation and maintenance of complete and accurate master data standards and models.

ESS has an all-encompassing approach to master data management, using an enterprise master data management strategy and roadmap. Our approach produces a flow of data that facilitates governance, performance evaluation and collaboration inside and outside your firewall.

Our master data management and governance methodology ensures that everyone knows what is what, who governs what, and how the data is used throughout the value chain.

Our approach to Master Data

Master Data Management focuses on 4 elements:

• Master data standards
• Data model
• Data cleansing and normalization
• Data conversion

Our non-intrusive method involves off-site application of master data and governance into a central master data application, in this case SAP NetWeaver Master Data Management.

Your company can benefit from ESS’s strategic approach, tool kit, governance model, accelerators and knowledge, to take full advantage of SAP NetWeaver master data management’s potential to:

• Enforce data governance practices.
• Validate orders to ensure accurate part numbers and the enforcement of suppliers’ rules.
• Improve collaboration with suppliers, customers and partners.