Gartner Master Data Management Summit

2008 Award Winner

Congratulations to Johnson & Johnson Health Care Systems Inc. for being nominated by its peers attending the Gartner Master Data Management Summit in Chicago as the winner of the first Gartner MDM Excellence Award. Accepting the award for Johnson & Johnson was Charles Bloodworth III, Director Information Technology.

See the 2008 Award Winner

Thanks to the other 2008 award finalist Asian Paints and State Street Bank for their strong submissions.

Gartner thanks all who submitted for this year's award and looks forward to the MDM Excellence Award in 2009.

Please stay tuned for the opening of the 2009 award submission window.

WHAT?

We are pleased to announce Gartner's first Master Data Management (MDM) Excellence Awards program. This new award program is all about highlighting world-class MDM initiatives and broadly sharing their successes, challenges and insights.

The winner will be announced at the Gartner Master Data Management Summit, November 17-19, 2008, taking place at the Sheraton Hotel, Chicago.

Applicants need to work within a case study framework, based on Gartner’s Seven Building Blocks of MDM, to describe their MDM initiative and highlight why it demonstrates MDM Excellence. Award finalists must be prepared to present a short encapsulation of their entry as part of a panel during the MDM Summit in November.

Finalists will be chosen based on their accomplishments in the seven building block areas:
 

• Vision
• Strategy
• Governance
• Organization
• Processes
• Technology Infrastructure
• Metrics

Vision
There needs to be a business vision (owned by the board) that requires an underlying MDM vision as a key enabler. Otherwise this could become a solution looking for a problem to solve. Business visions are typically underpinned by strategies for excelling in areas such as operational effectiveness, customer intimacy, and product or service leadership.

Strategy
The MDM strategy focuses on how the MDM vision will be realized and is the plan for how to manage master data assets within the organization. This revolves around the life cycle and the architecture for master data. How and where is master data going to be authored or sourced? Who will validate it and how? How and in what manner will it be enriched? Where will it be stored and where will it be published? Who needs to consume it; how and where?

Governance
Without effective governance, an MDM initiative will probably fail, so it is vital that the MDM governance framework is created at an early stage, and MDM governance should be seen as part of a wider need for governance of all information assets. Gartner defines MDM governance as the specification of decision rights and an accountability framework to encourage desirable behavior in the ongoing authoring, storage, enrichment, publishing, consumption and maintenance of master data.

Organization
Individuals and groups will vary in their roles and responsibilities for authoring, managing, consuming and maintaining master data. A unified MDM program will create change, something that is always resisted when there are established working practices, cultures and organizational structures. Therefore, communication, training and change management will be major challenges and must be well-planned and resourced with appropriately skilled people.

Processes
In addition to clear governance processes, there must be well-understood and agreed on processes for authoring, validating, enriching, publishing and consuming the master data. These processes will differ depending on the type and complexity of master data. Like most things, processes need owners — otherwise, they don't succeed. Because the consumers of master data are often different from the creators of master data, change management will be necessary, backed up by effective governance. In addition to the processes that author and consume master data, another set of processes must focus on ongoing MDM maintenance and data quality management.

Technology Infrastructure
MDM technology capabilities are a key part of the organization's overall information infrastructure and information architecture; therefore, they need to build on underlying technologies, such as middleware and data integration infrastructure, and integrate with established and future application systems. Determine what technologies are needed to enable the MDM vision and strategy, and where and how this technology should be sourced. Whether you choose to build or to buy you need to provide an MDM capability that meets your organization's needs in terms of:

• Data modeling
• Information quality management
• Loading, integration and synchronization
• Business services and workflow
• Performance, scalability and availability
• Manageability and security
• Measurement
• Technology and architecture

Metrics
Without measuring the quality of master data and its effects on business performance — before and after an MDM initiative — there is no objective basis for reporting improvements. Create a hierarchy of MDM-related metrics, aligned to wider organizational metrics, to communicate objectives down the organization and to measure status vs. plan. The MDM metrics should align with and link to the organization's wider business metrics.

HOW?

A review team from the Gartner analyst community will evaluate and rate each entry based on how clearly the entrant demonstrates excellence in their MDM initiative. The criteria used in evaluating MDM Excellence Award entries are the seven components as outlined in the Gartner research note titled, The Seven Building Blocks of MDM.

A panel of three finalists will be selected and subsequently required to present their MDM case study to the conference participants at Gartner's MDM Summit 2008 in Chicago. Conference participants will vote on which of the finalists demonstrated the best example of MDM excellence and a winner will be selected. The winner will be announced on Wednesday, 19 November 2008 during the conference.

Award Submission:
The entry deadline for submissions was September 12th 2008

Who Can Participate?
All organizations that are not vendors or service providers are eligible and encouraged to apply including:

• Large Enterprises, and Midsize businesses
• All vertical industries, including Private sector, Government and non-profit
• US or international organizations
• All business models: business-B2B, B2C, B2B2C...

Note: Although vendors or service providers are not eligible, we encourage them to assist their customers in submitting an application.

Questions:
Please email questions to: MDMexcellenceaward@gartner.com

Or contact:

Gartner Juan P. Fernandez Director, Program Management (203) 316-6783

WHEN?

Important Dates:

Application Deadline was Friday, September 12th 2008 (5:00 PM EST)

Notification to finalists will be made on or before Wednesday, October 1st 2008.

Finalists for the MDM Excellence Award present their case study to conference delegates at the Gartner Master Data Management Summit, on Tuesday, November 18, 2008

The MDM Excellence Award winner will be announced on Wednesday, November 19th 2008 during the conference.

WHERE?

If you are selected as a finalist, you must be able to confirm your participation as a panelist and your agreement to present your entry during the November Gartner Master Data Management Summit 2008 by Friday, October 10th 2008. MDM service providers and technology vendors may not present on behalf of a finalist.

Finalists for the MDM Excellence Award will be asked to present their case study to conference delegates at the Gartner Master Data Management Summit, on Tuesday, November 18, 2008 at the Sheraton Hotel, Chicago. The delegate’s feedback will determine the winner. Finalist selection and selection of the winner remains at the discretion of Gartner.

The MDM Excellence Award winner will be announced on Wednesday, November 19th 2008 during the conference.