By Bob Wall, Senior Consultant
Several months ago I decided to upgrade my home internet connection to broadband and discovered that several of the carriers offered a bundled package that allowed me to not only get an upgrade for my internet service, but also for my telephone and television services at the same time. It would offer better speeds, consolidate my bills and most importantly save me money. This bundle is often referred to as a “triple play” deal. So recently I decided to upgrade to a triple play package and I have been extremely pleased with the services and the cost savings.
Baseline offers a similar set of services that we deliver to companies to help out with with their master data management strategy. It’s called the “MDM Masterplan” and it combines a set of MDM specific tasks and skills to deliver an overall MDM roadmap. This can save companies an inordinate amount of time and money, focusing them quickly on their objective and how to reach them. The service is its own type of “Triple Play for MDM.” Instead of an internet, telephone and television bundle, the service bundles three core MDM activities: Business Scoping, Architecture & Technology Review, and Roadmap Development:
Business Scoping is analogous to the internet service in the home triple play package because it allows you to discover the company’s readiness and chart a path—kind of like a Google search!
Through review of business and IT documentation and interviews of key IT executives, MDM sponsors, key business and IT stakeholders, try to understand their concerns for MDM, opportunities for further efficiencies, the organization’s business priorities and challenges, and MDM business requirements.
Architecture & Technology Review is analogous to the telephone service in the home triple play package because the strength of the telephone service is the backbone architecture design and technology network of the service provider.
Through review of the “current state” technology development and processing environment, a gap versus the “desired state” environment, and identification of the existing methods, practices, and functional capabilities available to support the business capabilities associated with MDM, come up with a blueprint for an MDM architecture and the required technology to support it.
Roadmap Development is analogous to the television service in the home triple play package because you can tune in and plan your future viewing.
Reconcile the business and technical findings to produce a moving forward MDM implementation plan that is based on the company strategy, business priorities, and technical activities necessary to deliver an MDM initiative in an iterative, business-driven approach.
In summary, this “Triple Play for MDM” can assist a company in preparing for an MDM implementation and ensure that MDM is not only well-planned, but well-packaged and priced for success!
photo by rick (via Flickr)
Bob Wall is a senior consultant with Baseline Consulting. He is an information technology specialist with 30 years experience in all areas of data warehouse administration, data architecture, data resource management, training, and applications systems development, as well as in corporate management.
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