Andrew White

I just published an updated Magic Quadrant (for 2009) for Master Data Management of Product Data.  The update is quite interesting.  Despite the name we don’t really cast any spells and call on the gods to create the ratings; there is a lot more science in the analysis behind the scenes.  And the analysis this year resulted in two “leaders” in this market, a “challenger”, and a few minor movements in the “niche” and “visionary” quadrants.

But the funny thing about this Magic Quadrant is that it is poorly named!  Despite the name, “product data”, we really mean, “thing data”.  Most MDM of Product Data solutions are being deployed in places where firms have a need to master products, items, parts, tools, assets, services, and other “thing” kind of objects.  As such, the Magic Quadrant could be called, Magic Quadrant for MDM of “thing” data.  However, that would not really sell (or be that meaningful to the lay reader.

Likewise, John Radcliffe’s Magic Quadrant for Master Data Management of Customer Data is also poorly named.  Most users that implement these technologies are mastering customer, partner, account, supplier, and organization.  As such, this market segment could be called Master Data Management of ‘party’ data but again, that won’t sell or fit easily with the simply way users look at this stuff. 

The other segments that continue to emerge in MDM land include:

• hierarchy (relationship data that relate one object to another, used most often in reporting systems, but very often sourced in business applications; examples could be customer territory and account relationships; product category, product type codes)
• location (not often of primary concern when users think of MDM, but increasingly is of secondary interest to users once something like customer or product is mastered)
• procurement (the link between supplier and purchased-part master data, and the analysis that helps business make smarter decisions in procurement is clear, but the management/governance of that data is only slowly being externalized (ie MDM) from under or within the business applications in this domain
• asset (for certain industries, such as oil and gas, utilities, energy, and telecommunications, assets are important to the business and so asset master data and its governance is increasingly being called out as a specific focus

Hopefully the Magic Quadrants are helpful to you in evaluating technology providers – as you consider mastering “party” and “things”.