Master Data Management as a Strategic Foundation for Enterprise Consistency: Frameworks, Architectures, and Governance Practices
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15680/IJCTECE.2021.0401005Keywords:
Master Data Management (MDM), Data Governance, Enterprise Architecture, Data Quality, Reference Data, Transaction Data, Information Consistency, Data Stewardship, Enterprise Integration, Data StrategyAbstract
Enterprise systems today operate across distributed, cloud-enabled, and often heterogeneous environments, generating massive volumes of transactional, reference, and operational data that flow continuously between ERP, CRM, supply chain, finance, and analytics platforms. In the absence of a coherent strategy to manage master entities—such as customers, products, suppliers, employees, and accounts—organizations encounter fragmented data silos, duplicate records, inconsistent hierarchies, reconciliation overhead, regulatory exposure, and diminished analytical reliability. These inconsistencies not only impair operational efficiency but also undermine executive decision-making, digital transformation initiatives, and customer experience management. Master Data Management (MDM) has therefore emerged as a strategic discipline that integrates governance, data quality management, metadata control, and architectural standardization to create authoritative “golden records” and ensure enterprise-wide consistency. By aligning business ownership with technological enablement, MDM frameworks support data stewardship, survivorship rules, lifecycle governance, and synchronization mechanisms across systems. This paper examines foundational MDM concepts, architectural patterns such as registry, consolidation, coexistence, and transactional hubs, governance and stewardship models, and structured implementation strategies. Drawing on industry white papers from IBM, Informatica, and Oracle, early analyst research from IDC, and academic contributions published between 2000 and 2020, the study synthesizes conceptual clarification, architectural illustration, and process modeling to propose a phased and sustainable strategic framework for achieving enterprise consistency through disciplined MDM adoption.
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