Introduction: Building a Business Case for MDM
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Building a business case for MDM takes proper planning and teamwork
When an enterprise entertains the idea of a Master Data Management (MDM) program, it must justify the business case and successfully complete an MDM investment phase in order to initiate the program.
The business case is critical to secure executive management commitment and organizational buy-in. This is the reason why so many publications have been devoted to the business case, value proposition, and justification of MDM and other information- and data-centric initiatives.
Still a business case for MDM remains a significant challenge for many organizations. Many MDM initiatives are entertained and discussed for years and fail to get started because key stakeholders are not able to develop a common vision and reach a consensus on the business case for MDM and justify the investment.
This costs a lot to organizations, both in terms of the time spent on the discussions and when a failure to execute provides an advantage to a more nimble competitor. The cost of such a failure can have implications on the reputation of the individuals who championed the initiative and were tasked to develop the business case.
There are many publications and presentations that discuss and teach how to justify MDM and calculate the Return on Investment (ROI).
Often, these publications and presentations are not actionable and present an overly simplistic picture of the business case justification and MDM funding phase without taking into account a variety and complexity of the scenarios and factors that impact the business case justification process.
Many publications are written with the idea that an MDM initiative is always a good idea. However, the reality is that, for some organizations, an enterprise MDM may not be the right priority at the point in time or, even more, the costs of the program may exceed the benefits that can be incurred as a result of the program.
The devil is in details, which can result in a highly profitable MDM initiative or make it a total waste.
Hypothetical MDM business case estimations representing an “average” company may not apply to your organization. A real cost benefit analysis in your enterprise may show significant deviations (up or down) from the average estimated for a hypothetical company. This is the case when a deviation is likely to exceed the average.
This tells us that it is critically important to understand the challenges of business case justification of MDM and techniques that can help your organization to build a profound business case.
This series of blog posts intends to help program managers, planners, solution architects and other MDM stakeholders tasked by executive management or compelled on their own to develop a business case for MDM.
It is important to understand that there is no panacea in approaching a business case for MDM, though. Hence, we will not even try to provide a silver bullet for the MDM business case conundrum.
Instead this blog series aims at providing the reader with an analysis of a variety of scenarios, considerations and factors that should be understood and taken into account to properly build a business case for MDM.
Once these factors, scenarios and their impacts are understood, MDM stakeholders are in a much better position to determine the risks of the funding phase and mitigation strategies.
We will discuss what works and what does not work to help the reader avoid some common mistakes made in the past during MDM business case justification efforts. This is critical to succeed with a strong business case and move an MDM program in the execution mode.
Do you have any tales to share, whether successes or things that didn't go as planned? Leave them in the comments below.
This is part of Larry Dubov's series, Building a Business Case for MDM. Visit the table of contents for any posts you may have missed.
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