Business intelligence, transaction optimization and service-oriented architecture ambitions are driving master data management. The latest advice is think broadly, get in incrementally and prepare for the leg work.
It's a fast-growing market, but it's also one that is rapidly evolving, gaining sophistication even as practitioners eschew big-bang projects. The technology in question is master data management, and it's growing at 30 percent to 40 percent per year. Fueling that growth, vendors are quickly expanding technical capabilities, but the toughest challenges in MDM remain breaking down political barriers, agreeing on definitions and handling all the management tasks that follow in the wake of software implementations.
Source: Intelligent Enterprise, http://www.intelligententerprise.com