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xlii Enterprise Data Governance

This data constitutes a common fountain of knowledge
with considerable value. It is an actual asset, the financial
assessment of which should be a significant advantage in
launching an information system transformation to reduce
the opacity of IT. The richness of the information system is
less in its transaction execution devices and more in its
reference and master data that enables its realization. The
computerization of transactions is just a tooling that must
conform to requirements; it is almost a commodity. By
contrast, the reference and master data is information with
high added value; it is the base of knowledge without which
the company would have no value. We can automate
transactions in an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
software package or delegate them to a contractor, but a
company cannot do without its reference and master data. A
commercial brand such as Pepsi has a financial value;
reference and master data answers to a similar valuation
mechanism, applied to the immaterial assets of the
information system itself.

I.1. Principal characteristics of MDM

1
Master Data Management is an approach concerned with
reference and master data in order to guarantee their unified
governance under the control of business users. This book is
dedicated to explaining this approach and we will return to
the following principal characteristics:

– MDM is a warehouse of reference and master data
that provides a business tool for data authoring and
consultation. It offers high added value functions enabling
the management of versions, auditability, rights

1. It is difficult to determine with certainty who came up with the term
MDM, its use being so widespread from the moment it appeared. It is
probable that one of the founding texts is that of Rohm & Hass: Laying the
Groundwork for ERP: The Story Behind the Company’s Master Data, July
2002 [ROH 02].