MDM will not work unless you can fix the skills, culture issue

The master data management (MDM) skills shortage could upset enterprise data management plans unless businesses get their ducks in a row.

MDM skills are in demand: there simply aren`t enough suitably skilled folk to fulfil market requirements.

In addition, most organisations aren`t getting the culture of MDM right - and that means they don`t have an understanding of MDM that permeates all levels of the business. The result is that any skills they may have, therefore, may well, and often do, seek better positions elsewhere.

But what`s the big fuss with MDM? Quite simply the emphasis on compliance, SOA, and mergers and acquisitions has rendered making and maintaining accurate and complete master data very important.

A robust BI solution also requires stringent MDM because MDM consolidates, synchronises, and cleanses data across all enterprise systems. Business systems rely on lists of data, such as customers, products, and accounts master data, that are shared by several applications. It`s that data which is so important to businesses.

You regularly see articles appearing in the press - 10 critical components of successful MDM and the like - mentioning that business buy-in is important to getting MDM right. But what does that really mean? That question is at the root of the culture issue. Fixing the culture problem requires knowing what the problem is in the first place. In two words, it`s middle management. These nameless, faceless people who are often lost in the cubicle maze are actually essential to running the business, because without their buy-in MDM is dead in the water.

MDM absolutely requires that there is a vision and a business cause, which overcomes self-funding requirements, however fleetingly. Not doing so may see organisations finding themselves in a situation where systems integrators pinch their people and sell their time back to them at a higher rate.

Data practitioners often find themselves trapped between middle management, project managers, and the enterprise architects at the highest levels of the business. The problem is that being caught between these parties results in split objectives: never conducive to a happy ending.

Data employees with unclear objectives and vague sponsorship will be distributing their CVs faster than a 419 mail.

If your business is undertaking any type of MDM project or programme, then you need to get the fundamentals right before you lose your ability to do it at all by losing the people who make it happen.