Maybe you are coming to our MDM Summit in London, February 8-9.  Perhaps you can share with me your war stories related to MDM, and how you got round them.  I certainly could do with the help .

I was reading the WSJ this weekend and I spotted a very interesting book review: The New American Divide, WSJ Print Edition January 27 2011

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204301404577170733817181646.html

This extract or book review, from the upcoming “Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010” by Charles Murray (of “The Bell Curve” fame) won’t sit well with many readers.  The review explores primarily the cultural divide that has separated what was a newly emerging middle class in the 1960’s and looks how the economic and social differences between the now forming slightly-more-upper-class and the now-more-lower-class.  The middle class apparently, nudged along by social policy of the 1960’s, basically went separate ways.  The data Murray shares seems to show that there are indeed two different cultural groups that came from a common pool that was “us”.  The cultural gap that Murray explains is what others would call “income inequality”.  Such inequality is the playground of the politicians, and in today’s economic climate, this is very topical.  Murray suggests however that such inequality is as a result of a deeper, more culturally driven divide that remains in place today.  His answer to the reduce the gap, and to impact or slow the growing economic gap enjoyed by both groups, is for those that “have” to sell the merits to those that “don’t” and to encourage those that “don’t” to behave more like themselves.  This won’t go down well since it will be derided by many as politically incorrect.  My experience in the UK, during the 70’s and 80’s, epitomized by the schism with which Thatcherism is perceived, suggest Murray has some good points.  The “progress” we adored in the 60’s did create unintended consequences – and many of our politicians, because they are politicians, won’t accept that.

This is a comment from an article I read over the Christmas break: True Conservatives are writhing in their graves, Letters, Financial Times, US Print Edition, December 15^th 2011

http://74.6.238.254/search/srpcache?ei=UTF-8&p=true+conservatives+are+writhing+in+their+graves&fr=aaplw&u=http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=true+conservatives+are+writhing+in+their+graves&d=4786238963519893&mkt=en-US&setlang=en-US&w=ee1991a1,72c9e8b6&icp=1&.intl=us&sig=el2dFkwUq5syiRnTUAoJtA–#axzz1k6a0i2zS

I have to disagree with John Szemerey.  His letter to the FT was in response to UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s avoidance of signing up to the emergency agreement just before Christmas to save the Euro.  I happened to agree with the Prime Minister’s decision, though it was not the ideal result the UK has a chance to preserve its own economy while many Europeans attach their lifebelts to a leaderless, rudderless Titanic.  That being said, I think Szemerey misunderstands what Conservatism means.  He says, “Churchill, Macmillan, and Heath – must be writhing in their graves at the betrayal of the ideals for which they fought during their political lifetimes.”  He concludes, “The euro crisis would not have occurred if Britain had been a member of the euro group of countries”.  That last point wound up my clock since it is clearly preposterous.  The crisis did not occur in isolation to what happened in the US.  The euro crisis was always “hiding” since its primary cause is an imbalance in trade between the richer, producer countries and the southern consumer countries.  See Europe’s crisis is all about the north-south split, Alan Greenspan, Financial Times, US Print Edition, October 7 2011.  The gap in trade balance was always going to cause a crisis and it took the US housing bubble to trigger – but if the US had not crashed, the euro crisis would have happened later.  I don’t really know one Brit who opening talks about giving up political and economic sovereignty to a bunch of Europeans, in the way the French desire it (which, by the way, have their own reasons to counterweight their German neighbor).  Britain needs a truly open market and that is what should be protected in Europe.  Political unification is not going to happen soon, not least because France and Germany have differing views on what this means anyway, and that is another reason why the euro crisis was just waiting to happen.  So I don’t think Churchill would be writhing; he will mostly likely be sound asleep with a wry smile on his face.  As to Heath, I don’t really remember him but what I do remember I don’t like.  I matured, politically, when Thatcher sacked a tired, old Conservative party that needed reviving.

And here is a book review, also from the Christmas break:  Parker Payne Investigates, Agatha Christie, GGP Media.  I read the collection many years ago and had forgotten how good they were.  I happened to find this fine hardback edition and decided to reacquaint myself with Christie’s fine work.  I again remembered, all too soon, that the collection is too short.  If only there were more sorry souls for Parker Payne to help make happy!  I am not sure I could ever force myself to visit him though.  He was all too quick to correctly disarm his clients.  His travels were from a bye gone age when everything was a little more prim and proper, and I wish I had been there.  For a rainy day, or a long train or plane ride.  8 out of 10.

The year has started off with a bang.  Overall my 2011 was very similar to 2010 – very, very busy.  Inquiry load for MDM was much higher in 2011 though with our new hire in the MDM team, we were able to accommodate the increase without killing ourselves.  Travel is starting up this year with a blast – and it seems Master Data Management demand will only increase again.  I will be speaking about MDM and meeting with end users at BI summits (UK, Australia), BPM summits (UK, US), and that is along with our MDM summits (UK and US).  And we haven’t finished planning for the year yet, either.

I read lots of news papers and magazines, when I was not playing with the kids, or eating too much.  The Economist’s The World in 2012 had a story covering the mother of all MDM of Customer Data implementations.  In “India’s Identity Revolution” we hear how India is building out a platform to support real time identify management for all its citizens.  The focus is on sourcing social and other government services, and given the size of India’s population, this will be a very, very large implementation.  Maybe they could do with some help with MDM?

I will post a few other stories, the one’s I found most interesting, in the next few days.  But perhaps we can meet up at our upcoming MDM Summit in London.  I will be there all week (the BI summit is there earlier in the week).  The MDM Summit’s theme is “optimizing business outcomes with trusted master data” which seems very “in tune” with the current mixed economic situation.  MDM continues to amaze me.  Despite the complex political and fraught economic conditions, the market is going to continue to grow.  We put out a press release talking about the event that stated that “Worldwide master data management (MDM) software revenue will reach $1.9 billion in 2012, a 21 per cent increase from 2011”.  I will share our latest thinking on information governance, MDM of product data, and will share the key note with my colleague, John Radcliffe, to talk about MDM and cloud, social data and why “big data” isn’t big enough.

I was not able to attend this event in 2011 so I am looking forward to attending, and meeting those of you that can attend!

Given I focus on Master Data Management, and hence the core of an information governance strategy, I take a general interest in virtually everything SAP has to say where information is consumed, copied, used or produced.  Given the hype around “big data”, mobile, and in-memory computing, that means much of the agenda is relevant.

There is lots to analyst and lots to discuss, but the one thing that stands out for me (during day 1) is that SAP continues to incorrectly present and sell Enterprise Information Management.  I think this is a legacy that remains from the acquisition of Business Objects (yes, that long ago).  You see, as soon as Gartner coined officially the term EIM (I don’t think we invented the practice; we just gave it a fresh new perspective along with a formal term), Business Objects (then still independent) renamed their data integration tools as EIM tools.  This gave the perception that they were the market leader for what is not, in actuality, a market.

Despite this, SAP remains (in my limited view) out of kilter with strategic information management practices.  EIM is not about “serving data, cleaned, ready, for use in BI” (a phrase I heard from an SAP speaker today).  EIM is about managing the right information for re-use, for business valuel across ALL applications and all BI and all mobile and so on.  Yet SAP’s go to market remains a little confused here.  EIM (and perhaps BPM?) needs to broken out from the “Business Analytics” product line and assembled and built to “serve” all systems of record and engagement.

Even the “collaboration” message, presented as part of the glue within the Business Analytics product line, seems disjointed.  Some of the examples shared were from the legacy application domain, or system of record systems.

Byron Banks is talking now.  Maybe it’s all going to change….

I asked Byron one question: Does SAP NetWeaver move over to HANA?  The answer was that SAP is committed to solving its customers’ MDM problems, but SAP has not (yet) committed to moving SAP NetWeaver MDM over to HANA.

Is this the end of the road for NetWeaver MDM?

Little, in my view.  Despite the European press having a field day trouncing the British (as they always like to do), the result is extremely risky.  The first country to flounce such “budgetary controls” in the past was Germany!  France did too.  Do you honestly think that with automatic rules in place that such things won’t be overridden with the paymaster general has to go overdrawn for a few months?

What are these countries singing up for?  They are supporting the idea that their fiscal and budgetary plans will be submitted to a central authority for approval.  This central authority is not yet known, but if it represents any part of the EU structure, it will be unelected politicians or technocrats that no one even knows the name of.  Does anyone seriously think this will save the Euro, or resolve the current debt crisis?  Better yet many of these other countries have yet to ratify the agreement with their own governments at home.  So it is not even a done-deal, yet.

The one good set of agreement came Thursday when decisions were taken by the ECB to increase the set of funds available to it to help support banks.  Though details leaked also that the ECB was taking lower quality bonds from banks to help ease the liquidity problem.  Seems like the ECB is watering down its asset quality, and all it can do is print money.

This so called “agreement” just does not work.  There is one major issue not addressed at all, and one minor issue that will come about as a result.  The main issue that is at the heart of the debt crisis is that EU countries are economically at odds with each other.  Germany is a creditor nation, led by exports and not (consumer) spending.  Greece, in the other hand, is the mirror image.  Greece is a debtor nation, consuming and not exporting.  Greece is economically too small but look at Italy, Spain, Portugal, and other countries – even France.  The root of the problem is the imbalance in the way the countries P&L are managed.  Until and if there is one P&L, this model cannot work.  The fault lines will remain in place.  Having a budget control in place does not change how these economies work.  Until and if Germany acts more like Greece, and Greece acts more like Germany, the issues will remain.

Second, the implied budget control process is fraught with political disaster.  What will happen when a peripheral country submits their budget the EU control body say, “sorry buddy, you are spending too much you need to cut back somehow”?  This has to happen, and by a lot, due to the main issue outlined above.  Many countries that go through this process will cry “foul” since they will be told buy a third party to change how they run their countries.  This willingness to shift sovereignty is what this new agreement is all about.  But it seems no one is talking about how it will work.  Politicians will baulk from being told to cut, cut, cut, and governments will topple or be in conflict with the new budgetary process.  Worse, the penalties for violation of budgetary rules will be financial.  That’s dumb.  This is like penalizing a thirsty man by taking his access to water away – he remains even more thirst.

This new agreement sounds good – but does not hold up.  It can’t work as documented so far – in fact there is a severe lack of documentation.  It seeks to address a future failure of a European country that fails to manage its own money – that is not the problem at hand.  We have failed and failing governments now!  And to read how the European press are “all over the odd man of Europe” (Britain) is just rich.  The Financial Times US print edition ["Britain's cold shoulder for Europe", December 10, 2011) wrote a narrative about how the meeting panned out Thursday and Friday.  It turns out that the UK was blighted and prevented from explaining its real requirements that would have prevented the veto.  President Sarkozy, apparently, summarized the UK's requirements incorrectly and many other leaders therefore misunderstood and immediately went against the UK"s demands.  Frankly I am glad.  If Britain is isolated, they are (as Terry Smith, chief executive of Tullet Prebon, "...as isolated as someone who refused to join the [unfinished] Titanic just before it sailed.”  So be it.

Opening key note was heavy on business content, and low on technology (good stuff).  So much so, I had to wonder what tools were being used in each customer story. But toward the end Arvind Krishna came to the rescue and included all the main product updates.

The Information management key note was a bit of a let down though.  Arvind carried on where he left off.  His opening slide was all about how much faster and bigger big blue’s boxes were than the other guys.  IMS 12?  The nearest we got to a business case was “cut IT costs”.  The real business drivers that counted couldn’t be kept down though.  The middle section was about information governance, and there was a smattering of interesting business stories to help.  I wish IBM would start with the real business drivers, and then back their way into hard core technology.  It would look so much better.

Customer presentations were very good.  Sat in a session where two users (Cardinal Health and Nationwide) both spoke to their “information governance” programs.  Nationwide explained their line of business driven, MDM oriented, customer view program that has grown in to a broader information governance program.  Cardinal talked about their top down/IT led, business glossary based, finance driven program that is now backing into to operational information governance.  Two different starting points, slowly converging on “information governance”.  Very good stories – dripping business drivers and real, meaningful learings.  Not a DB2 anywhere to be heard.

Then a penny dropped.  The session ended with an IBM’er talking about their information governance framework.  My jaw dropped.  I have said before that I do not think that “information governance” really exists.  It is a misnomer since there is no context.  You say, “Master Data Management” and I know what you mean (most of the time).  You say “information governance” and I have to ask you for more information – what is the business case, the scenario, what are you trying to govern and why?  IBM should NEVER present on their “information governance framework” WITHOUT first starting off by talking about business drivers.  IBM should always start off with a business scenario.  It makes “governance” meaningful.

News on the new release of InfoSphere MDM release 10, due November 4^th.  New packaging and increased focus on integration across the previously separate MDM products, and other offerings.  Looks like a simpler message, for once.  Should be better understood by users.  Maybe I will get fewer questions about product positioning.  I hope so.

Last week in the print edition of the Wall Street Journal (Sept 13, 2011) I spied an interesting article on the front page, entitled, “New Medical-Billing System Provides Precision: Nine Codes for Macaw Mishaps.”  Basically a new federally mandated set of codes are to be used nationally to provide for a classification system tracking all our bumps, scrapes, and other reasons for our visits to the doctor or hospital etc.  The current national set of codes was close to 19,000.  This set is to explode to 140,000.  Quite a jump.  I am sure such detail would provide interesting analysis for what ails us, in large groups over time, but the change in scale will create an administrative nightmare.  This updated set of standards has huge ramifications for governance of information, which we know is struggling to be sustained anyway.  Nothing like piling on more work as we go.  I wonder what the code for “too much stress at work” is?

Collectively I see a lot of folks coming to terms with defining, and re-defining, the role of “data governor”, “data steward”, and “data maintenance”.  I think this is a critical delineation of duties, yet so many organizations start with an “all in” definition and then struggle when it comes to execution.  I don’t think MDM, and any related information governance effort, can work unless these roles are clearly identified and resourced (sometimes by separate people).  I don’t mean to suggest that organizations need to build up their bureaucracy; it could be that these roles are staffed by one or two folks.  The point is that these roles exist today in every organization, but mostly informally and inconsistently.  These roles need to be explicit and the dependency of the roles needs to be made clear; I know what I am supposed to do in my home every evening; why not in our day to day work?

I spent another day this week with several other clients I was reminded, as I flew home, of two press pieces.  Jim Ericson over at Information Management, wrote a nice piece: MDM: No Roots, No Fruits.  The part of the article that resonated with this week’s most recent client interactions was this: “…[I]t’s easy to forget that most companies – by far — are only kicking the tires on MDM.”  This is just so true.  And this tells you just how far we have come with “data governance” – not very far.

This does not mean that there aren’t examples of other data that might be governed for specific purposes (think records management, digital media), but widely adopted, enterprise wide, primary information assets, broad based data governance does not exist.  And despite this many organizations are still “successful” in that they still ship the goods, still tax the citizen, or still power the washing machine.  Talk about a tough message to sell.

In support of Jim’s point I noted a survey Kalido published recently.  In The State of Data Governance 2011” they reported, among other things, “Despite nearly seven years extolling the virtues of managing master data by analysts and vendors, 49% of companies still do not manage master data anywhere but in their disparate applications.”  Well I have to disagree!  I think a figure of 49% is very flattering.  I think the vast majority of organizations that could take advantage of information governance programs like MDM are “not there yet”.  I would estimate nearer 80% of companies are not managing their master data properly.  A figure nearer 80% seems to jive better with the level of inquiries we saw a few years ago, the much higher level we see now, and the type of organizations we talk with.

On a more positive note Heiler also published a survey of organizations using MDM solutions to help master product data.  The survey is called “Return on Investment (ROI) of Product Information for Multichannel” and by definition, this is a segment of the overall MDM market.  The good news is that the survey showed some interesting data supporting the business case for how an MDM approach helps organizations achieve their business goals more so then without MDM.

“Conversion rates”, that is, the rate at which a prospect turns into a customer transaction, was reportedly higher for organizations adopting MDM of Product Data.  But oddly only manufacturers surveyed suggested this; retailers suggested a much small impact of governed data on conversion rates.  Then again, the maturity of MDM in retailers lags that of manufactures by quite a large margin (I surmise) so I wonder if the respondents really answered the question that was asked of them.  I would have to explore the responses (and organizations) more fully to get to the bottom of the difference.

Either way both survey’s expose some good information, and provide more food for thought.  I am still really excited at the amount of work going on, but there is so much more ahead of us than there is behind – for most of us.

I spent a few minutes comparing and contrasting MDM to BI and CRM and other business applications, programs, and disciplines.  We explored the purpose of MDM, and how it would provide a foundation for all manner of applications that consume data.  Toward the end of my “pitch” I mentioned how adopting MDM will likely lead to discovery of how business rules in the source applications will eventually be questioned, and that they may need to be “controlled” by the MDM program.  As I paused for oxygen, the client jumped in:

“Hang on, I don’t want to do all that stuff.  I think the solution is only a little, simple database in the center of the IT systems that maintains “single version of the truth”, that every user and system can interrogate for any purpose, that publishes out, as needed, good, clean data”.

OK, this is where my mind ran ahead of the words coming out of my mouth.  This sounds like a logical request, but how on earth would this work?  Surely, if this solution were this simple, why did MDM come about?  Could a full blown MDM implementation be serviced by “just” an uber table that stored links and maps between the erroneous data in the source systems and all new resulting systems, including the new CRM and BI tools, yet to be deployed in 2012 and 2013?  Of course, the answer is “technically yes, this could be done, but that is not the point”.  The reason why we are all in the pickle (of inconsistent data across heterogeneous landscape) is because of the number of one-off, “little projects” that were designed to solve this problem that became, themselves, silos that did not replace anything, any role, or any service.  Technology, my dear client, is the least important thing here.  Governance IS needed – there is no way around it.  But how could I bring us back to reality?

We back tracked – and talked about governance, stewardship, roles, responsibility, data ownership, process integrity, business outcomes, and so on.  As we talked more, I could hear the clients wooden/noisy chair gradually lean back on its springs, and could imagine the client coming out in a cold sweat.  I ruined her day.  She did not want to hear a Gartner analysts tell her that this was going to be hard work.  She wanted a simple IT answer to a business problem, make her decision simple.  I felt the wind leave her sails, my customer service score falling, as she put the hand set back on the phone cradle.

I hate calls like this.  On a few, rare occasions, the client spots the mismatch in expectations and they are re-set, and success is sought.  For too many, the short cut is the easy way out – and I get the call 2 years later after the initial “pickle’ as gone very rotten.  And there maybe even less money (and energy) left to tackle the real issue.

Economics: Rituals of Rigour. After mistaken claims made ahead of the global crisis won much academic support, long-held assumptions were called into question – but the real world often remains overlooked or ignored. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/faba8834-cf09-11e0-86c5-00144feabdc0.html

Financial Times, Print Edition, August 25th 2011

As a closet economist I found this article very entrusting.  John Kay, a visiting professor at the London School of Economics, discusses the state of the reputation of economists.  Given that we are in the middle of a long winded and painful economic cycle, and that we seem to be subject to opposing economic, if part political, forces pushing for government spending, or debt reduction, one has to ask – what have economists got to say, and what they say, is it right?  It seems that the conditions we find ourselves under are somewhat unique, so no single historical experience matches completely.  Some argue that the US situation more closely resembled what happened to Japan in the last 10 or more years (long time slump).  But ignoring the actual answer to this question, this article explores how our economists develop their theories and play them out – with tools and technology – interestingly mentioned (game theory) in this weeks Economist (Technology Quarterly).

An unpalatable solution- Eurobonds could restore confidence, but at a cost http://www.economist.com/node/21526325

The Economist, Print Edition, August 20th 2011

The European economic condition seems to fluctuate daily – though much of the news these days seems to negative.  I certainly think that Greece has to default, and leave the Euro.  I can’t see Germany bailing out the profligate Greeks all the while those same Greeks, and now Italians, refuse to change the behavior that needs to change.  We are not too dissimilar here in the US; but being the reserve currency, the pressure on US debt cannot be as critical.

Notwithstanding this view, the article was very good.  The idea of Euro bonds stem from the conclusion that Europe needs a single economic police or policy formulating machine.  Since each state maintains its own economic policy, the shared currency does not solve all the problems resulting from very different economic cycles and cultures.  The Euro needs, requires, such resulting machinery.  But it won’t happen soon.  So Euro bonds cannot be guaranteed, and Germany wont (constitutionally) accept such risk unless others are on the hook to share in the payment.  So the idea is sunk, yet increasingly is seen as one of the main pathways to saving the Euro.

The reality is that the German governance will call the shots that count, and it might yet be that Italy that sinks the Euro, before the Greeks do what they must (leave the Euro).

Banks sued over mortgage deals http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/c3656efc-d57c-11e0-9133-00144feab49a.html#axzz1XDkdzYg4

Financial Times, September 3rd, 2011

Where will this all end?  How on earth can the US government or its agents sue banks for selling dodgy mortgages?  Who will sue Fannie and Freddie for themselves selling mortgages to those that could not afford to pay?  Who will sue the rating agencies for not doing their due diligence?  Who will sue the government leaders that unwittingly encouraged the whole debacle over years of social engineering, off the back of capitalistic success?  I can’t see what this move is likely to deliver.  What are these people thinking?   Clearly this won’t go to court – so a settlement is what is sought.  So the banks, bailed out, be under even more pressure.  Why don’t we clean up the mortgage mess?  Not everyone has the right to a mortgage – we each have to earn it, and demonstrate the ability to pay it!

Anyway, I also got up to speed with my Economists.  I was going to blog on the economic issues this week but before I could, this week’s print edition (August 6^th-11^th) arrived earlier than normal, on Saturday morning.  What delight – I could read the Economist on time!  Well the lead article (Time for a Double Dip?) was top drawer – just what I wanted to blog.  It concerned the signed “debt-deal” between Democrats and Republicans: I quote:

There was a deal to be head: keep up spending in the short term, with a stress on much–needed infrastructure investment, as well as extending the temporary tax cats, in exchange for a big medium-term reduction in the deficit, centred on entitlements and tax reform. Congress did precisely the opposite, failing to support the economy now and failing to find enough cuts over the next decade to stabilize America’s debt.

This paragraph concluded:

Would you build a factory today if you knew that taxes had to rise eventually, but had no idea which ones?

Bottom line is the deal that was signed was really a non-event.  Our politicians have let us all down.  The left wants to protect entitlements (we can’t afford too, so let’s talk about cuts) and the right wants to protect/cut tax rates (let’s make a fair tax system and cut out the fiddles).  An article on CNBC captured the point that this problem is not new, or short term, but was set in train many years ago.  In “America’s fiscal rot set in years ago“, HSBC chief economist Stephan King is quoted as saying, “Even before the financial crisis, the fiscal path was unsustainable: an ageing population combined with extravagant social security commitments suggested either the need for massive tax increases or draconian spending cuts.”  Both parties need to treat running our country as we try to run our households.  Someone needs to stand-up and stand-out for conservative rectitude.  But who?