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Strategic Aspects 45

the banking products, without wanting to or having the
skills. In the context of constant product evolution, the bank
and its regional branches perceive this IT solution as a
burden. How is it possible to improve the situation without
questioning the operation of the existing banking platform,
the overhaul of which, in one go, is impossible when you take
into account the enormity of the task?

This bank is confronted with a strategic problem that
links directly to MDM. Indeed, the approaches of BPM, SOA,
Business Intelligence or others are bound to fail because
they require taking charge of the reference and master data
up front. The processes (BPM), the exposed services (SOA)
and the Business Intelligence systems remain mediocre in
quality if the data they are handling is not reliable and only
governed by IT.

With MDM, this bank is building a unified data repository
for its reference and master data; it has a homogenous user
interface under the responsibility of the business users who
administer them. Without intrusion vis-a-vis the existing
files and databases, this new data repository is synchronized
with the one already in place, via integration solutions. The
heterogenous consultation and reference/master data update
screens, in the existing databases, are neutralized to the
benefit of the governance functions brought by the MDM.
The transactional systems of the banking legacy platform
are not impacted by this new data repository architecture.
These systems continue to use reference and master data in
the historical databases, without knowing that they are now
updated from the MDM system.

In some situations, a study on the impact of the existing
user transactions might be necessary, for instance if a
transaction is able to directly update a master data element.
In this case, it is necessary to ensure that the MDM system
is also synchronized with these transactions. This type of
situation exists but is limited. Indeed, the reference and