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Strategic Aspects 43

can be incapable of brutally cutting itself off from its existing
IT because it is involved in all decision making and
operational tasks. The improvement of the situation is made
in stages, but voluntarily stopping investments that
intensify the addition of extra layers of software on top of
what already exists, the control of which can no longer be
ensured.

An IT department must slow down the addition of
software if it is not able, at the same time, to take away what
is no longer reliably working. Businesses users must demand
a more transparent IT, which means taking the reference
and master data, business rules and processes out of existing
hard-coded software. The progressive restructuring of IT
systems must be based on this re-appropriation of intangible
assets strategy. The first stage is MDM, the foundation of
the whole transformation, followed by a business rules
repository (BRMS) and processes (BPM).

2.2.1. First stage: the data repository

The MDM approach is deployed with no impact on what
already exists, i.e. without modifying the data repositories
which are already in place in any historical databases.

The MDM situates its data repository, a kind of reference
and master data warehouse, in front of existing functional
and technical silos. A data synchronization mechanism
between the MDM and these silos allows the replication of
updates from the MDM to the already existing databases in
the silos. In order to achieve this, IT specialists must master
technical integration solutions 4 that enable this
synchronization.

4. Type EAI/ESB/ETL.