Inquiry Spotlight: Master Data Management, Q1 2009

Information and knowledge management (I&KM) professionals continue to investigate master data management (MDM) as a strategic means to deliver a trusted view of critical data throughout the enterprise. Unfortunately, MDM remains an immature business capability and technology space with a great deal of market confusion regarding its definition and implementation best practices. Non-standardized — and often misleading — vendor messaging, combined with an abundance of underperforming end user implementations, make scoping and planning an MDM initiative effectively all the more challenging. With this low level of market maturity, it's no surprise that the majority of the 74 MDM inquiries Forrester received last year had clients asking mostly basic questions about definitions, getting started, best practices, and vendor selection. By understanding the questions being asked by their peers, I&KM pros can learn from the mistakes of others rather than their own and avoid common pitfalls when developing their own MDM strategy.