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WHITE PAPER Enable Proactive Master Data Governance The Keys to Successfully Increasing Business User Adoption of Master Data

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Page 1: Enable Proactive Master Data Governance · This white paper explains the data governance capabilities of Informatica MDM, which have been ... First, there is the risk involved in

W H I T E P A P E R

Enable Proactive Master Data GovernanceThe Keys to Successfully Increasing

Business User Adoption of Master Data

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This document contains Confi dential, Proprietary and Trade Secret Information (“Confi dential Information”) of Informatica Corporation and may not be copied, distributed, duplicated, or otherwise reproduced in any manner without the prior written consent of Informatica.

While every attempt has been made to ensure that the information in this document is accurate and complete, some typographical errors or technical inaccuracies may exist. Informatica does not accept responsibility for any kind of loss resulting from the use of information contained in this document. The information contained in this document is subject to change without notice.

The incorporation of the product attributes discussed in these materials into any release or upgrade of any Informatica software product—as well as the timing of any such release or upgrade—is at the sole discretion of Informatica.

Protected by one or more of the following U.S. Patents: 6,032,158; 5,794,246; 6,014,670; 6,339,775; 6,044,374; 6,208,990; 6,208,990; 6,850,947; 6,895,471; or by the following pending U.S. Patents: 09/644,280; 10/966,046; 10/727,700.

This edition published August 2010

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1Enable Proactive Master Data Governance: The Keys to Successfully Increasing Business User Adoption of Master Data

White Paper

Table of ContentsExecutive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Informatica MDM Data Governance Capabilities: A Closer Examination . . . 4

Keys to Help Business Users Easily Create and Consume Master Data . . . . 5

Keys to Help Data Stewards Effectively Manage and Monitor Master Data 10

Keys to Help IT Flexibly Deploy and Confi gure Informatica MDM for Business Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15

Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16

About Informatica MDM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16

About Informatica . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16

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Executive SummaryWhen companies do not provide their employees with business-critical data about customers, products, channel partners, suppliers when they need it, and in the right format for them to use it, the business as a whole suffers. Employees are frustrated because they cannot do their jobs effi ciently, customers are unhappy because they encounter ineffi cient service, and management lacks confi dence in its ability to make the right decisions. However, some major challenges arise when business users are asked to embrace master data. Some companies have tried to tackle these challenges by developing in-house data governance solutions however, the results have been mixed.

This white paper explains the data governance capabilities of Informatica MDM, which have been successfully adopted by Fortune 500 companies to support their enterprise data governance processes. It also provides guidance to three key groups that are involved in the data governance process: 1) business users so they can easily create and consume master data, 2) data stewards so they can effectively manage and monitor master data, and 3) IT so they can fl exibly deploy and confi gure the technology for business use.

When the business-critical data about customers, products, channel partners, suppliers, and employees is not available to users who need it, when they need it, and in the right format for them to use it, the business as a whole suffers. Employees are frustrated because they cannot do their jobs effi ciently, customers are unhappy because they encounter ineffi cient service, and management lacks confi dence in its ability to make the right decisions.

Major Challenges with Business Adoption of Master Data

Data Consistency After the Fact — Reactive Model

The root cause of these challenges often lies in managing data that is critical to the business. Master data management (MDM) promises to resolve these challenges because it ensures that business-critical data, such as data about customers, products, channel partners, suppliers, and employees (also known as master data), is validated as correct, consistent, and complete when it is circulated for consumption within business processes, applications, or users. While companies across many different industries have embraced MDM, adoption rates among business users have been limited, which in turn limits the benefi ts of the MDM implementation.

In the conventional reactive approach to data governance, which is the practice of organizing and implementing policies, procedures and standards for the effective use of an organization’s information assets, master data was sourced primarily from internal Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), and legacy applications, or sometimes from external third-party data providers such as Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) or Acxiom. This data then went through a controlled process within an MDM system to become the single source of truth for the enterprise. Such processes were entrusted to a small group of data stewards, who enriched, matched, and reconciled the incomplete, inconsistent, and duplicate master data for the entire enterprise. Then the MDM system synchronized the reliable master data back to the applications for consumption by business users.

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3Enable Proactive Master Data Governance: The Keys to Successfully Increasing Business User Adoption of Master Data

Poor Business Visibility and Delayed Adoption

Over time it has become apparent that this reactive model to data governance has several fl aws. Business users continue to create incomplete, inconsistent, and duplicate data within their business applications (CRM, ERP, etc.) because those applications do not enforce data quality. As a result, data stewards end up having to confront those problems downstream. This situation quickly creates a bottleneck because the sheer volume of errors means that data stewards cannot fi x the thousands of bad data records fast enough. Ultimately, business users do not have access to reliable data within their applications in a timely manner.

Slow Response to Business

Separately, data stewards are challenged in their day-to-day data management efforts because they do not have access to critical functionality needed to complete their job effi ciently. Lack of task management, the inability to quickly route suspect data records for review by business users, and the absence of insight into data quality at any time inhibit data stewards from quickly delivering reliable data for downstream consumption. In addition, data steward supervisors are unable to effectively manage this disorder, because they are ill equipped to monitor the bottlenecks and readily resolve them.

Two Impediments to Developing an In-House Solution To overcome these data governance challenges the business—including business users and data stewards—has been placing demands on IT departments, the managers of the technology infrastructure, to create a totally new application that would provide all of the required functionality. IT has had no option but to seek out a workable solution. But IT departments have quickly learned that trying to deal with the situation in-house brings a host of additional problems. First, there is the risk involved in developing and delivering, in time, an application with an intuitive and easy-to-use user interface that will gain business acceptance. Second, there is the cost of maintaining the application and adapting it to changing business needs. Not surprisingly, many businesses have begun seeking off-the-shelf data governance solutions that can conclusively solve these problems in short time frames and at reasonable cost.

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Enable Proactive Master Data Governance with Informatica MDM

Implement a Collaborative Approach to Data Governance

The data governance capability of Informatica MDMTM technology enables master data solutions that are effective for every stakeholder in the data governance equation: business users, data stewards, and IT managers. Informatica MDM features a Web-based, intuitive, and easy-to-use interface that gives users the ability to create, consume, manage, and monitor master data more effectively than ever before. Informatica MDM’s native workfl ow capability enables business users to collaboratively create data directly within the MDM product interface and govern the approval process. It also enables business users to immediately consume reliable data directly to perform their jobs. Informatica MDM has a powerful task-oriented user interface that improves data steward productivity by simplifying the daily management of repetitive tasks and enabling close monitoring of data quality. And IT can rapidly deploy and confi gure Informatica MDM for immediate use by the business community and then continue to adapt it to ever-changing business requirements.

Increase Business Adoption of Master Data

By increasing business adoption of master data solutions, Informatica MDM delivers immediate effi ciencies within business functions. It improves the productivity of the business by helping it fi nd accurate information faster, and it also enables more effective compliance initiatives by providing a complete and consistent view of the data, its history, and its lineage. Organizations can reduce the cost of maintaining data quality with Informatica MDM because it enables proactive data management by data stewards. In addition, Informatica MDM benefi ts decision makers in the IT department because it eliminates the cost and risk of developing and maintaining its own user interface while enabling IT to increase its responsiveness to new business needs.

Informatica MDM Data Governance Capabilities: A Closer Examination The remainder of this white paper explains the data governance features and functions of Informatica MDM and how it benefi ts all stakeholders in the data management chain by enabling:

Business users to easily • create and consume master data

Data stewards to effectively • manage and monitor master data

IT to quickly • deploy and fl exibly confi gure Informatica MDM for immediate business use

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5Enable Proactive Master Data Governance: The Keys to Successfully Increasing Business User Adoption of Master Data

Keys to Help Business Users Easily Create and Consume Master Data

Collaboratively Create High-Quality Master DataInformatica MDM reduces downstream data management headaches by ensuring that correct and complete data is created from the outset.

Using Informatica MDM for data governance, users can:

Create and maintain high-quality master data•

Proactively validate, augment, and enrich data•

Work collaboratively across lines of business•

Figure 1 depicts the four key data governance functions supported by Informatica MDM.

Figure 2 is a screenshot of Informatica MDM’s data governance capabilities, which enable you to create master data directly in the user interface, validate it and send it for approval.

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Create and maintain high-quality master data• Because CRM and ERP applications cannot guarantee the completeness of master data at its creation or ensure that data duplication can be avoided, advanced data governance policies require decoupling the creation of master data from these applications and creating them directly on the master data system. Informatica MDM ensures that only the highest quality data can be created and stored. Important data fi elds can be marked as required, and Informatica MDM forces users to provide data for those fi elds deemed essential. Before any data can be saved, it is validated for correctness and completeness, and any errors are displayed.

Proactively validate, augment, and enrich data• Any incorrectly created or incomplete data can be automatically corrected or enriched. Informatica MDM accomplishes this by using existing data quality tools, such as Informatica Data QualityTM to correct the data, or by using data quality or enrichment services from external data providers such as D&B and Acxiom. Before the data is saved, Informatica MDM will automatically search for potential duplicates, display them side by side with the newly created data, and highlight any differences. Users are then given the option to use existing data or proceed with the newly created data.

Work collaboratively across lines of business• If the user lacks the authority to publish data for downstream consumption, it can be sent to other individuals or groups of individuals for approval. These approval processes can be customized according to the type of business data. For instance, customer data can be sent to one or more individuals in the sales or marketing organization to be approved, while product data can be sent to an employee in the R&D organization. In this way, Informatica MDM enables many different types of collaboration: a hierarchy of owners can approve the data to fi nalize a record, or multiple subject matter experts can contribute their knowledge to complete a record.

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7Enable Proactive Master Data Governance: The Keys to Successfully Increasing Business User Adoption of Master Data

Easily Consume Master DataInformatica MDM stores the most reliable master data as the single source of truth for the entire enterprise. Normally this data would be synchronized back to CRM and ERP systems for consumption, and the business user would have to search multiple applications to fi nd all the relevant data. But Informatica MDM enables business users in any department to immediately consume the complete data to perform their jobs effi ciently. It also enables the option of embedding visual components directly into the business applications so that business users can access the master data within those applications.View master data details, hierarchies, and relationships

Using Informatica MDM for data governance, business users can:

Search all master data from a central location•

Search information securely•

View master data details, hierarchies, and relationships•

Embed Informatica MDM user interface components into business applications or embed • components from other applications into Informatica MDM

Gain a unifi ed view of master data and all related transactions•

Figure 3 shows a screenshot of Informatica MDM’s search capabilities. Here you can centrally search all master data and view the complete details of records.

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Search all master data from a central location• The ability to search for relevant information easily, quickly, and securely is an important consideration within any business application. Informatica MDM’s data governance user interface provides a single secured location to search, browse, and view details of master data stored within Informatica MDM. Users can quickly search for data with the basic search utility or use the extended search capabilities to broaden the search results.

Basic Search:• Using basic search, a user can quickly fi nd exact results by entering a search criterion against a list of predefi ned parameters. The parameters refl ect the attributes of a master data record such as a product name or customer address. If users are unable to remember the exact search value, they can use wildcard characters such as “%” or “*” to retrieve all possible combinations. For example, if a user enters “ACM*” or “ACM%” in the display name fi eld, Informatica MDM will list all records that contain “ACM,” such as “ACM Appliances,” “ACM Medical,” and “Western ACM Turbines.” If the user accesses this customer often, he or she can save time in the future by saving the basic search criteria.

Extended Search:• If a basic search does not return any relevant results, the user can then try extended search. Extended search employs fuzzy logic to fi nd similar data stored in the system. In regard to the previous example, if users are unable to fi nd any results for “ACM,” then they can select extended search, and Informatica MDM will return broader results containing “All Combined Machines” or “All Combined Machines, Inc.” In either case, the results are displayed to the right of the search frame, and the user can open any result to obtain additional information. For more fl exibility, the user can customize the results display by adding or removing attributes to show the relevant data.

Save Search Query:• Informatica MDM also provides the ability to construct and save search queries for business users who execute frequent searches. The query builder within Informatica MDM supplies a powerful way for these users to create ad hoc queries or save them for future use. They can optionally share the saved queries with others, or designate a query as the default search query.

Search information securely• Informatica MDM furnishes the strongest security so that only authorized users are able to search and see the right data. Both search queries as well as results are constrained by the user’s role. For example, a human resources manager can search for and see employee Social Security numbers, which may not be available to a line-of-business manager. Or country-specifi c data can be constrained to users within that country. For example, users in France will be able to see only data about French employees.

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9Enable Proactive Master Data Governance: The Keys to Successfully Increasing Business User Adoption of Master Data

View master data details, hierarchies, and relationships• Informatica MDM enables users to view and manage relationships among master data. It enables users to view these relationships in ways that best suit their needs. For instance, they can view a parent company, such as ACM Holdings, and its subsidiaries, such as ACM Appliances and Western ACM Turbines, along with complex ownership structures, as a hierarchy. Alternatively, the relationships can also be displayed as a tree, taxonomy, or a network. For example, product hierarchies can be depicted in a tree view, while a healthcare provider’s affi liations can be depicted as a network. In all these types of relationship diagrams, each node represents a master data record, and users can view detailed information about each record as well as its relationship information (see Figure 4). Any needed modifi cations can be made to the data and users can save the record or send it for approval.

Because multiple organizations within a company consume master data, users sometimes need to view information from multiple perspectives. For example, the marketing department might be interested in a customer’s legal hierarchy structure, whereas the fi nance department might be interested in a hierarchy of departments within the customer organization that have purchased its products. The legal hierarchy information may not be available from internal sources, so the marketing department might purchase this data from a third-party data service provider, such as D&B. However, the departmental hierarchies might be stored within an ERP system, such as SAP. Informatica MDM can store and display these multiple different hierarchies side by side, enabling easy comparison between them. Figure 4 illustrates multiple different hierarchies depicted side by side: Michael Phelps is part of the Davisson household hierarchy and has an affi liation with the Kellogg Company, which is a different D&B hierarchy, and also owns a SpaceExplorer 3D Mouse, which is part of a different product hierarchy.

Figure 4 is a screen shot of Informatica MDM displaying household information in a hierarchy and revealing valuable relationships between master data such as customer and household, a corporate hierarchy or a product taxonomy.

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Embed components from Informatica MDM into business applications or • embed components from other applications into Informatica MDMFor those users who would like to consume master data within their applications, Informatica MDM can allow for consumption of the reliable master data from the system directly within those applications. For example, when users search for an account, such as ACM in Salesforce, they can view the related hierarchy from Informatica MDM containing the parent company, ACM Holdings, along with all its subsidiaries, ACM Appliances and Western ACM Turbines, within the Accounts view of Salesforce. In addition, Informatica MDM can embed components from other applications. Now users do not have to switch to different applications to complete their task at hand. For example, a child tab for a customer, adjacent to the tabs displaying the customer’s address and contact details, can be confi gured to display a view from Yahoo! Finance depicting the customer’s key fi nancial statistics, such as market cap or P/E ratio.

Gain a unifi ed view of master data and all related transactions • Using powerful data federation capabilities, Informatica MDM provides a unifi ed view of master data along with all its relevant transactional data, which resides in the CRM or ERP applications. Because Informatica MDM maintains cross-reference links between the master data and the applications, it can relate the master data to the transactional data in these applications. So, a customer service representative can view all the payments (transactional data) the customer made (master data). This highly useful functionality supplies a complete 360-degree view within Informatica MDM, enabling improved compliance tracking and effective customer service.

Keys to Help Data Stewards Effectively Manage and Monitor Master Data

Effectively Manage Master DataInformatica MDM features an intuitive data governance user interface that simplifi es data management and makes it easy to build on the advanced functionality of Informatica MDM.

Using Informatica MDM for data governance, data stewards can:

Quickly resolve potential matches•

Merge duplicates•

Manage hierarchies•

Using Informatica MDM for data governance, data steward supervisors can:

Approve and manage updates to master data•

Use tasks to streamline data management•

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11Enable Proactive Master Data Governance: The Keys to Successfully Increasing Business User Adoption of Master Data

Quickly resolve potential matches• Informatica MDM creates and maintains the single source of truth for all core master data across the enterprise. The inconsistent, incomplete, and duplicate data across different applications is fed into the MDM system, where it undergoes a rigorous cleanse, match, and merge process to create the single source of truth. Informatica MDM identifi es all of the matching records and automatically resolves any duplicates. But in cases where the match is too close to call, the system queues up the potential duplicates for a data steward to manually review and resolve them. Informatica MDM then automatically creates tasks for these unresolved duplicates and assigns them to data stewards, based on rules, to visually review them. When the data steward logs in, he or she will see these tasks within the dashboard view. Upon selecting a task, the data steward is presented the suspect record in doubt along with a list of potential duplicates that Informatica MDM determined to be the closest match. The data steward can compare these duplicates side by side and any differences between the data are automatically highlighted (see Figure 5).

Merge duplicates• The data steward proceeds to build a list of duplicates to be merged into a single source of truth. A preview of the fi nal merged record is presented in a separate window. Informatica MDM even offers the fl exibility to override the values before merging the record. After the data steward clicks “Merge”, Informatica MDM consolidates the duplicates by merging all of them into a single record and then applies the overridden values. This ability to merge multiple duplicates at once enables data stewards to save time instead of having to merge two at a time. Additionally, if data stewards do not have enough information to resolve the duplicate, they can create a new task and assign it to a business user, requesting him or her to review the information before it is stored in the system. Alternatively, if another data steward is better equipped to resolve the differences, the existing task can be reassigned to this other person.

Manage hierarchies• Informatica MDM furnishes an alternate method for viewing and managing master data through hierarchies. Data stewards can not only create relationships but also merge duplicates within the hierarchy view. A data steward can drag one node and drop it on another one to either merge them or create a relationship between them. If the data steward elects to merge the records, the details for each of the records will be displayed side by side for comparison before merging them. Alternatively, the data steward can opt to merge them without any comparison. However, if the data steward chooses to create a relationship instead, he or she will be provided a window for assistance with creating the new relationships.

Figure 5. With Informatica MDM, you can display potential matches side by side and merge them

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Approve and manage updates to master data• Informatica MDM enables data steward supervisors to effectively manage their subordinates’ actions. Upon logging in, supervisors see a list of tasks in the dashboard awaiting their approval that were generated by their subordinate data stewards while performing manual merges. A supervisor can view the merged records and decide to either approve or reject them. Upon approval, the records become available immediately for business use. If a data steward supervisor rejects a manually reconciled record, he or she can attach a comment and return it to the data steward. If a data steward has incorrectly merged records that are not duplicates, the supervisor can unmerge them into separate records or have the data steward do it.

Use tasks to streamline data management • As mentioned earlier, Informatica MDM automatically creates tasks for matches that are too close to call. These generated tasks can be routed directly to the supervisor’s dashboard. The supervisor can assign priorities to these tasks, marking some as more urgent than others, and then distribute them to different data stewards. At that time, these supervisors can add comments providing additional information about each of the assigned tasks. Thus, Informatica MDM enables effi cient communication between the supervisors and their teams of data stewards. In addition, Informatica MDM enables data steward supervisors to streamline data stewardship by allowing them to create standard search queries, save them as public, and then publish them for consumption by all their data stewards.

Effi ciently monitor master dataAs data is created, consumed, and managed by the business users and data stewards within Informatica MDM, these business constituents need to constantly monitor the data within the system for various reasons. As such, the business users want to monitor the data for compliance reasons. For example, to ensure Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, the fi nance department might be interested in auditing a certain customer’s address changes over the last seven years. The data stewards want to monitor the data reliability to ensure that the business users are consuming the best possible information at any time, and the data steward supervisors want to monitor that data stewards are working optimally in clearing the master data for quick consumption. Informatica MDM satisfi es the needs of all these constituents by allowing them to visually inspect how the business data has changed and evolved over time.

Using Informatica MDM for data governance, data stewards and their supervisors can:

Track master data lineage and history•

Track hierarchy changes and history•

Audit master data for compliance•

Monitor data quality and productivity•

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13Enable Proactive Master Data Governance: The Keys to Successfully Increasing Business User Adoption of Master Data

Track master data lineage and history• Informatica MDM tracks all historical changes to data, such as a customer name change or the addition of an organization’s new address, as well as the lineage of how duplicate records were merged. The Entity View within Informatica MDM shows business users a timeline of when the data was created and modifi ed. They can expand or collapse the timeline to adjust the time period that is of interest to them, with data changes indicated by colored boxes on the timeline (see Figure 6). Different colors distinguish the data changes from the record merges. The user can click on a box to view the details of the change or merge. The Change Details window displays the values before and after the change. The Merge Details window displays a tree with details on how the record has merged with the others. Users can even track a particular data change down to the source application that contributed to the change. Also, the timeline features a slider that users can drag to display the data values of a record at any point.

Track hierarchy changes and history• Informatica MDM can track and display changes not only to master data but also to its hierarchies. If a customer organization’s hierarchy has changed subsequent to a merger, or if a product’s hierarchy has changed after a change in bill of materials, Informatica MDM can display what the hierarchy looked like before and after the change. This review is possible because Informatica MDM tracks the history of all changes to the master data hierarchies. With the slider control, the user can view what the hierarchy looked like at any time.

Figure 6 is a screen shot of Informatica MDM, which illustrates the ability to track master data lineage and history over time, including which cell of the record was changed, when it was changed and who changed it. This functionality supports data auditing and compliance efforts.

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Audit master data for compliance• This powerful functionality aids audits of data for compliance purposes. Informatica MDM enables the user to view the changes not only to the record but to its relationships as well.

Monitor data quality and productivity• The Informatica MDM data governance dashboard can be used for monitoring as well. Data stewards can use it to monitor data quality, and the default data quality chart displays the level of data quality for a particular individual, product, or organization. Data steward supervisors can use a different chart to measure the productivity of data stewards, identify any bottlenecks, and proactively resolve them. They can also use the job statistics chart to understand the number of records that the scheduled batch jobs processed successfully. These are some of the sample charts included; users also can create custom charts to meet their additional monitoring needs.

Once logged into Informatica MDM, users are presented with a data governance dashboard that is customized specifi cally to suit their work style. The dashboard contains all information necessary for users to complete their tasks, and it is presented in two sections. The top section provides a list of all tasks assigned to a user. Through this section, the user immediately gains an understanding of the priority, status, and due dates of specifi c tasks. The user can select any task to view additional details, such as how long a task has been active, who assigned the task, and any comments related to the task.

In the bottom section of the dashboard, users can view custom charts to gain insight into ongoing data quality or the productivity of data stewards. Informatica MDM provides a number of sample charts, but if desired, custom charts can be developed and displayed as well. Charts from other applications, such as reporting applications, also can be integrated into this section.

Informatica MDM’s data governance dashboard improves productivity by simplifying the daily management of repetitive tasks. It can store favorite searches, frequently accessed data, hierarchies, and more. In addition, Informatica MDM meets the needs of international organizations not only by allowing data to be viewed in multiple languages but also by making it possible to display the user interface

in their chosen locale. When users simply change their locale preferences, Informatica MDM will display the screens and error messages in that language. Finally, users can personalize their dashboard to include the information that is relevant to them in the format they like.

INFORMATICA MDM DATA GOVERNANCE DASHBOARD

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15Enable Proactive Master Data Governance: The Keys to Successfully Increasing Business User Adoption of Master Data

Keys to Help IT Flexibly Deploy and Confi gure Informatica MDM for Business UseBusiness users within different organizations, or even different departments within the same organization, might want to create and consume master data in different ways. Some might want to use Informatica MDM exclusively to create and consume data, while others might want to create and consume data within their business applications, or a combination of both. Recognizing the different requirements within an organization, Informatica provides the fl exibility to deploy Informatica MDM for data governance as is, extend it to include information from other applications, or integrate it as part of the applications themselves.

As is:• IT can rapidly deploy Informatica MDM for data governance and quickly confi gure a host of out-of-the-box functionalities for immediate use by business users and data stewards.

Easy confi guration:• Informatica MDM provides a confi guration tool to confi gure the different functions within Informatica MDM for data governance. This tool makes it easy to create separate subject areas to manage different types of data such as customer or product data. The detailed view for a subject area can be further divided into parent and multiple child tabs. For example, a customer’s name, gender, and date of birth can be displayed in the parent area, while addresses and phone numbers can be displayed in different child tabs. Informatica MDM allows this information to be displayed in a form or grid layout. To enable approvals and collaboration, users can confi gure workfl ows differently for each subject area.

It is also easy to confi gure the dashboard, localization options, and security privileges for different users. The dashboard can be confi gured to display the appropriate task information and the relevant charts. The localization option enables the users to see the labels for the data fi elds in the desired language. The security privileges can be confi gured by user roles such as business analyst or data steward.

Extend:• Often, business users will need access to other applications to complete their tasks. For example, when creating a customer record, a user might need the customer’s location, contact details, and revenue information. Such information is available through third-party data providers such as Hoovers. Rather than forcing users to access other applications separately to complete the data entry, Informatica MDM allows IT to confi gure a view of Hoovers to be displayed within the “create” window as a child tab. The business user saves time by having all the necessary information within Informatica MDM to complete the task. Informatica MDM also can be confi gured to invoke functions within other applications in real time such as D&B or OneSync.

Integrate:• For those users who prefer to use business applications to create or access the master data, Informatica MDM enables IT to embed visual data governance components directly within those applications. For example, a customer hierarchy can be displayed within Salesforce’s Accounts view.

The fl exibility of different Informatica MDM deployment options helps IT to reduce costs and increase business user adoption while being responsive to the needs of business users. Even after the initial deployment, IT can continue to confi gure Informatica MDM for data governance to rapidly meet their changing business requirements. Without such fl exibility, organizations are left with no other option than to build their own custom applications to work with the master data. By providing strong out-of-the-box functionality, multiple deployment options, and an easy-to-use and confi gure interface, Informatica MDM helps IT reduce the risks involved in developing and maintaining their own applications.

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SummaryThere are three key components to successful data governance: people, process and technology. With strong out-of-the-box functionality, multiple deployment options and an easy-to-use and confi gure interface, Informatica MDM have been successfully adopted by Fortune 500 companies to support their enterprise data governance processes. The data governance capabilities in Informatica MDM empower business users to easily create and consume master data, data stewards to effectively manage and monitor master data, and IT to fl exibly deploy and confi gure the technology for business use.

About Informatica MDM Informatica MDM empowers companies to improve operations with business-user to consolidated and reliable business-critical data—such as data about customers, products, channel partners, suppliers, and employees—as well as the relationships between data. Flexible and proven, Informatica’s multidomain master data management (MDM) system provides comprehensive support for all MDM requirements—data integration, profi ling, quality, and master data management—on the same platform. Best-in-class companies choose Informatica MDM because they can start small by addressing any pressing MDM-related business problem with rapid implementation and then expand to address additional business problems across the enterprise, realizing fast time to value, lower TCO, and superior ROI.

About InformaticaInformatica Corporation (NASDAQ: INFA) is the world’s number one independent leader in data integration software. The Informatica Platform provides organizations with a comprehensive, unifi ed, open, and economical approach to lower IT costs and gain competitive advantage from their information assets. Nearly 4,000 enterprises worldwide rely on Informatica to access, integrate, and trust their information assets held in the traditional enterprise and in the Internet cloud. Visit www.informatica.com.

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White Paper

17Enable Proactive Master Data Governance: The Keys to Successfully Increasing Business User Adoption of Master Data

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© 2010 Informatica Corporation. All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A. Informatica, the Informatica logo, and The Data Integration Company are trademarks or registered trademarks of Informatica Corporation in the United States and in jurisdictions throughout the world. All other company and product names may be trade names or trademarks of their respective owners. First Published: July 2010 7174 (07/06/2010)