Date
2009 - ongoing

Research Degree Project

What leads professionals to making false decisions when they plan the master data management structure, and what methods and tools could help them make better decisions in the future?

According to Alex Berson and Larry Dubov, Master data management is defined as "the framework of processes and technologies aimed at creating and maintaining an authoritative, reliable, sustainable, accurate and secure data environment that presents a single version of the truth for master data and its relationships, as well as an accepted benchmark used within an enterprise as well as across enterprises and spanning a diverse set of application systems, lines of business, channels, and user communities". (Berson and Dubov (2011)). Also an alternative definition by the Gartner Group is " Master data is the official, Consistent set of identifiers, extend attributes and hierarchies of the enterprise" and also "Master Data Management is the workflow process in which business and IT work together to ensure the uniformity, accuracy, stewardship and accountability of the enterprise's official, shared information assets". (White Andrew and John Radcliffe (2008))

By defining the term Master data management the importance and the need of this structured way of data processing is very clear and obvious. However, managing Master Data is one of the most difficult, time consuming and expensive challenges facing IT professionals in enterprises today. According to John Kopcke "Master data management is not a new problem. Enterprises have been struggling with it for some time. However, new global regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley in the United States and Basel II in Europe and increasing interest in performance management have given it a new urgency. Why? Compliance and performance management both require consistent master data across an enterprise. In fact, master data management has become such a high priority that the Tower Group estimates that 80 percent of enterprises have plans to centralize it". (John Kopcke (2008))

Despite the importance of Master Data Management and the obvious real need for single version of the truth regarding the data, there is a massive problem with the implementation of a Master Data Management project. Almost the three quarters of the global implementations of Master Data Management end up to a failure. This research will be an attempt to investigate the reasons why these projects fail.

Project Supervisors

• Dr Keith Burley (Director of Study)
• Dr Paul Crowther (Second Supervisor)

Researchers involved

Panagiotis Lepeniotis - Research Degree Student