The push for trusted, enterprise-wide data views has made Master Data Management (MDM) a critical focus for organizations. As businesses seek to extract more value from their data assets, MDM has evolved from a technical initiative into a fundamental business discipline.

The MDM landscape is evolving rapidly to meet diverse business needs. While customer and product data remain key focus areas, organizations are expanding MDM use cases, particularly in areas like supply chain optimization and ESG reporting. However, with this expansion comes increased complexity.

With emerging technologies like data catalogs and generative AI creating new intersections with MDM, organizations face growing challenges in managing and maintaining data quality across disparate systems and sources. This complexity makes it essential to understand the fundamental building blocks that enable MDM success.

At the heart of successful MDM implementations lies a critical capability: entity resolution. This foundational technology addresses one of the most persistent challenges in data management – determining when different data records refer to the same real-world entity, despite variations in how they’re described, or when similar records actually refer to different entities. In a broad sense, entity resolution can be equated with data quality.

The strategic importance of entity resolution in MDM success is gaining traction. According to Gartner®, the Steppingstone to MDM is Entity Resolution (or Data Quality Program), as stated in the 2024 Gartner® Market Guide for Master Data Management Solutions report.* The report also states, “There has been a growing trend of clients beginning their MDM journey with entity resolution to ensure a cleansed and harmonized set of data before launching their MDM program. Gartner defines entity resolution as the capability to consolidate multiple labels for individuals, products, or other data classes into a single resolved entity and analyze relationships among these entities.” Senzing is mentioned as one of several vendors operating in this space with some MDM capabilities.

We believe that this trend makes sense – by establishing a strong foundation of resolved entities before implementing full MDM capabilities, organizations can increase data quality, reduce risk, accelerate time to value and build confidence in their master data initiatives.

If you want entity resolution technology to serve as a critical enabler for MDM success, seek the following key capabilities:

• Advanced matching algorithms that can automatically identify and resolve entities across disparate data sources, even when dealing with incomplete, inconsistent or intentionally obscured data
• Real-time resolution capabilities to ensure that entity relationships are maintained as new data enters the system
• Sophisticated relationship analysis to uncover hidden connections that might otherwise remain buried in siloed data sets
• Explainability functions that show the why, why not and how for record-matching decisions, providing full visibility into all the details about how decisions were made

Organizations embarking on MDM initiatives should consider starting with entity resolution for several reasons. First, state-of-the-art solutions can provide immediate value through improved data quality and relationship insights, delivering early wins that help build momentum for broader MDM initiatives. Second, it establishes the clean, deduplicated data foundation necessary for successful MDM implementation. Finally, the best entity resolution technologies can scale to handle enterprise volumes while maintaining accuracy, providing a future-proof foundation for growing MDM needs.

For data and analytics leaders planning MDM initiatives, understanding the critical role of entity resolution can help inform technology choices and implementation strategies. Begin by assessing your current entity resolution capabilities and identifying key use cases where improved entity resolution could deliver immediate value. By ensuring strong entity resolution capabilities are in place early in the MDM journey, organizations can build toward their goal of trusted, enterprise-wide master data with greater confidence and a higher probability of success.

* Gartner, Market Guide for Master Data Management Solutions, By Helen Grimster, Sally Parker, Gavin Hicks, Stephen Kennedy, 17 December 2024.

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