Building an Effective MDM Strategy

By Mike Zier

Whether starting, rebuilding or simply refreshing your company’s MDM program, the best way to begin is to take a giant step backwards. While this may seem contradictory – or even too simplified – it is an often overlooked, yet critical, first step.

Before embarking on your company's MDM program, ask yourself two questions. First, which specific, short-term business objectives will it solve? The issue may be related to customers, suppliers or even employees. Enlist an executive sponsor whose success is tied to the solution and make sure the initiative solves a particular, pressing problem. It's always best to start off with a victory everyone can clearly recognize. You'll validate your supporters and gain the confidence of any skeptics.

Second, and equally as important, determine if your MDM solution has the flexibility to solve future, longer-term objectives - even if you're not sure exactly what those may be. Sound like a job for a crystal ball? Thankfully the solution is much more logical. With the right strategy, the best partners, an open environment and the highest-quality data, you can virtually assure your program's short- and long-term success.

Today

Developing an MDM roadmap, can indeed be a long and winding endeavor. Make the trip less arduous by identifying your first stop right away - see 'Identify the Issue' below. And once the issue is identified, think about the internal and external data required to get the job done right. If it's a sales or marketing matter, make sure your data allows you to establish a baseline for revenue and profit by customer. Also think about the data's ability to determine market share by industry and geography. That can lend valuable insight into profitable opportunities you may have otherwise missed.

When it comes to procurement, it's critical that your supplier risk framework keep up with business cycle dynamics. Another concern might be finding the most efficient and least time-consuming way to demonstrate compliance to existing and emerging regulatory policies relevant to your industry.

With all the mergers and acquisitions taking place today, savvy organizations rely on external databases to provide the most up-to-date information on their customer and supply base. For some companies, achieving cost-effective workforce management is the most pronounced challenge. Employment tax management, employment verifications and other administrative workforce responsibilities may distract leadership from more strategic matters such as talent management.

Tomorrow

Even if you are starting off with one issue or department, don't lock yourself into only one type of data. Consider the needs across other divisions and how they can leverage data for their purposes. Marketing, procurement and HR data should all work together. Often the true value of MDM is the ability to make better decisions across your entire organization.

Future phases of your MDM plan should not only integrate across divisions, but functional areas as well. In the MDM ecosystem, there are many firms: technology providers, service providers and data providers. But no single company can do it all. Work with providers who know how to play nice with each other - and offer the flexibility to integrate with each other come what may.

Keep it fresh

One last vital point: your customer, supplier and employee base is constantly changing. Business leaders and team members need timely insights into these real-world changes in order to be successful. A world-class MDM program provides a clear reflection from the rearview mirror as well as the visibility to smoothly navigate both risks and opportunities on the road ahead.

Identify the issue

Identifying issues is key to ensuring your MDM program is on-track, so is your company's biggest challenge:

• Allocating limited sales resources to the best existing and potential customer opportunities?
• Helping the procurement department with supplier cost savings or compliance issues?
• Targeting customers who are most likely to pay their bills?
• Improving the quality of the information used to make decisions across numerous departments?

Mike Zier is Senior Vice President of Marketing and Data Management Sales for Equifax Commercial Information Solutions. He has more than 20 years' experience leading sales and marketing organizations for companies including Oracle, Information Resources, Texas Instruments, as well as two successful start-up initiatives at ePartners and ActionSystems.