MDM is all about data quality and data governance. We now know that improved data quality raises all operational and analytical boats. But it's not just about deploying data quality tools. It's about deploying data quality tools within and across the IT landscape - from a thousand points of data entry to a single version of the truth. Here are three tips to deploying MDM across your applications and enterprise.

#1: Identify a tactical, high-value business problem where MDM can materially help.

§  Support a customer acquisition and retention program with a 'customer' master data solution.

§  Accelerate new products and services to market with a 'product' master data solution.

§  Reduce supplier exceptions or support spend control initiatives with a 'supplier' master data solution.

§  Support new store (branch, campus, restaurant, hospital, office, well head) location analysis with a 'site' master data solution.

§  Fix long standing Chart of Accounts and Cost Center problems with a 'financial' master data solution.

§  Support M&A activity, application upgrades, an SOA initiative, a cloud computing program, or a new business intelligence deployment by implementing a mix of master data solutions.

#2: Incrementally expand to a full information architecture. Quite often, the measurable return on interest from tactical MDM initiatives will fund future deployments. Over time, the MDM solution expands into its full architecture to cover the entire IT landscape. Operations and analytics are united, IT flexibility is restored, and sustainable competitive advantage is achieved.

#3: Bring business into every MDM deployment. To be successful, MDM must work hand in hand with data governance. In fact, Oracle MDM incorporates data governance tools for business users. IT can insure data quality, but only after the business side has defined what quality means. The business establishes the rules for governing the master data, and then IT enforces the rules via the MDM applications. Without this business/IT collaboration, MDM initiatives seldom achieve their full potential.

It is not very often that a technology comes along that can measurably assist organizations across a wide variety of top IT initiatives. Reducing costs, increasing flexibility, getting more out of existing assets, and aligning business and IT are not easy tasks for any CIO. But with MDM, success is achievable. IT can regain its place as a center for innovation.

For more information on this topic, take a look at my article Master Data Management Deployment Tips in the Opinion Section of Oracle's Profit Online magazine.