Master Data Management
Explore master data management and its role in entity resolution to improve data integration and data quality. Understand key components like cross-reference tables, governance, workflows, and how to balance risk and cost for effective data deduplication. Learn practical frameworks to help manage duplicates safely in business systems while supporting analytics needs.
Master data management (MDM) is a buzzword we cross when searching for entity resolution products. Vendors sell whole frameworks beyond matching to manage data. Most often, SaaS-based platforms cost in the 6+ digit dollar range per year, excluding the investment in people operating the platform and executing the MDM strategy. The total investment varies wildly, depending on the choice of vendor, package, and MDM implementation style.
MDM vs. entity resolution
Entity resolution builds cross-reference tables to identify duplicates within and links across sources. A typical example is customer records—one example of master data entities. Other master data entities are locations, suppliers, people, and materials. Oftentimes, we combine suppliers, companies, and people into one class called parties because of their overlap.
The second and more critical difference is governance. Let’s say our algorithm found a duplicate in the ERP’s customer master table with a confidence of 95%. We should not just replace the redundant record with its counterpart. This can break financial transactions linked to the redundant record. Do we want to put our operations at risk for a slightly cleaner dataset? At least, not with the right governance in place. ...