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MDM Maturity Levels 97

5.3.1. Improved administration by business users

With a static MDM system, the states of the business
objects and their effects on the data validation rules are not
meaningful to business users. They are hidden in bespoke
and hard-coded software. If a new validation rule linked to
the business states arises it is necessary to plan for IT
software development. With a semantic MDM system it is no
longer necessary to resort to this type of development. The
administration functions of this MDM system allow the
management of the business objects’ states as master data.
The value of these states initialized and updated with the
help of an administration function under the responsibility of
business teams. In the same way, the addition of rules which
allow or disallow the update of data (according to the states
of the business object in which it is held) is handled by an
administration function.

By avoiding the development of hard-coded software, a
semantic MDM system is more in line with business
requirements. As soon as data modeling includes the
definition of the lifecycle of objects, a semantic MDM system
takes them into account automatically. This is a considerable
bonus in the business administration of data: it reduces the
opacity that a static MDM system continues to harbor.

In having business objects’ states at their disposal, teams
can audit them, access the data modification rules that are
dependent on the states, and check that there is no confusion
between business states and organizational states .
2

5.3.2. A greater reliability in the data repository

By using the business states as master data, an MDM
system can oversee their validation. In this case, a semantic

2. Business state = decision table (see Chapter 9). Organizational state =
workflow (see Chapter 11).