A Marriage Made in Data Heaven

Results of a global 2011 survey by Information Management, sponsored by Pitney Bowes, bear out the fact that you need to wed data governance (DG) to your master data management (MDM) projects to ensure complete success. Whenever a MDM initiative is set up, you have a far greater chance of success if it sits in an intimate partnership with DG.

Results from Around the World

One hundred and ten companies responded to the survey. The majority of them – 71% – were from North America, with 23% from Europe and the rest from other areas of the world. Around a third of them were actually running DG and MDM programmes at the time they completed the survey. Success rates from the various programmes completed were conservative, but over two thirds said that that the two initiatives were mutually supportive.

A Marriage of Convenience

Nearly 40% partnered DG with MDM right from the start of their programmes. In the 27% that introduced DG projects after they started MDM, it was assumed that they had met problems of inconsistencies, lack of data rules or their enforcement across the business. In the answer to a question about the reasons for setting up DG, 25% admitted it was to support MDM. Another 19% wanted to support their business intelligence operations.

Among the respondents, the marriages of most of their MDM programmes with DG ones were approaching their 5th anniversary, so they clearly felt they had been right to encourage the union. All in all the results bear out the opinion of data quality experts that a wedding of MDM with DG is a marriage of convenience, but also a marriage made in heaven for IT departments and data champions.