Master data errors costing manufacturers millions

Only 14% of the analyst’s respondents believe that costs directly attributable to poor master data are less than $1 million per year. Its research among senior IT executives looks at the take-up and adoption of MDM software, and finds that only 15% of organisations rate their data quality as high or very high, but that 30% are yet to deploy any kind of data quality tools to combat the problem. Andy Hayler, CEO of The Information Difference, says that one of the major obstacles preventing companies from managing their master data effectively is the sheer number of systems usually holding this information. Only 1% of those surveyed had a unified source for their master data. The median number of systems holding customer data, for example, was six and for product data, nine, but 13% of companies have more than 100 systems storing customer data, and 11% have over 100 handling product data. “We often hear that MDM is a key concern for CIOs, yet in reality it seems there’s still very little actually being done about it,” syas Hayler. “Given the huge costs some firms are experiencing, surely it’s time the situation changed. The business case for tackling master data management is stronger than ever.”