Master data

Master data is the core non-transactional data entities like customers, employees, products, suppliers, accounts etc. that participate in the activities and events of your business processes.

Master data is the core non-transactional data entities like customers, employees, products, suppliers, accounts etc. that participate in the activities and events of your business processes. It is the key "people", "places", "things", or "nouns" (e.g. account, policy etc.) that are involved in a business process. Master data tends to be small in volume but high in complexity, with many descriptive attributes. The list of valid values for those attributes is referred to as Reference Data.

Master data is among the most important data in your business, yet its core role means it is often duplicated across multiple systems, creating a management nightmare. Which version of a customer is the correct one, the record in sales, manufacturing, or finance? And which system holds the email address you should use to make contact? Because of this many organizations choose to implement Master Data Management, a discipline focused on matching (across systems), deduplicating, and generating a canonical "golden record" for each Master data record. A "golden record" is a single authoritative version of the Master Data record.

Learn more

Deep dive into Reference data management (RDM). Learn about the challenges facing businesses, the typical uses cases, capabilities and collaboration requirements of a good RDM system, Governance and implementation options, and the future of AI and automation for RDM. Read the white paper: Reference Data Management - The Missing Layer in Enterprise Data Architecture.