Master data management (MDM)

"Master data management (MDM) eliminates redundant and inconsistent versions of the same data in your organization" (Vinculum). It's a way of "enabling an enterprise to link all of its critical data to a common point of reference. When properly done, MDM improves data quality, while streamlining data sharing across personnel and departments. In addition, MDM can facilitate computing in multiple system architectures, platforms, and applications" (TechTarget).

MDM encompasses tools for "removing duplicates, standardizing data (mass maintaining), and incorporating rules to eliminate incorrect data from entering the system in order to create an authoritative source of master data" (Wikipedia) for an organization's diverse business processes and functional areas.

With MDM, "business and IT work together to ensure the uniformity, accuracy, stewardship, semantic consistency, and accountability of the enterprise's official shared master data assets. Master data is the consistent and uniform set of identifiers and extended attributes that describes the core entities of the enterprise" (Gartner). "For MDM to function at its best, personnel and departments must be taught how data is to be described, formatted, stored, and accessed. Frequent, coordinated updates to the master data record are also essential" (TechTarget).

"A few uses of master data management:

• Reconcile between diverse ways to represent similar concepts
• Meet organizational data requirements
• Manage data quality
• Manage the costs of data integration
• Reduce risk
• Eliminate costly redundancies" — Dataversity