Andrew White

You go on the road and while you are away, great notes get published!  John Radcliffe, my primary MDM partner, just published his annual update to the Gartner Magic Quadrant for MDM of Customer Data.  As you may know, Magic Quadrants highlight the main vendors in a market and rate then against a number of criteria across two axis: ability to execute and completeness of vision. 

Producing a Magic Quadrant is hard work.  There are the obvious briefings where vendors tell you all about how good they are, and why they should each be in the “upper right” of the analysis, and why everyone else should be in the “lower left”.  Of course, we don’t take much notice of vendors who, with no analysis behind them, simply “talk off” about “why this” and “why that”.  

There are reference calls with end users where you hear about the initiatives and implementations first-hand.  There are many more client interactions, many over the year, where we spend even more time with our own clients answering questions and gleaning insights as to how things (and vendors) are doing.  

Then there are other sources – press, industry, communities, other analysts – financial and Gartner, and pretty much any other source we can get our hands on.  Then there is the usual peer review process which is the most rigorous there is in our industry.  And presto, the “Magic” is added to the Magic Quadrant.  In truth, there is a little Magic to it.  But the name sticks.

Anyway, John’s research is highly recommended if you have desires to master customer data and achieve “single view” of customer (or party, for that matter) across the business.  

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Category: Customer Data Integration (CDI) MDM MDM of Customer Data     Tags: MDM, MDM of Customer Data

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