Are you struggling to understand the single view of truth for your data? Do you have disparate source systems which churn out data at varying intervals and in heterogenous data formats? When it comes to data availability and usability, have you heard management saying we get “delayed good quality data” or “on time bad quality non-reconciled data”? 

If this sounds familiar, then you need to get on with the Master Data Management (MDM) roadmap. The architectural concepts within MDM can be used in creating a trusted and authoritative view of an organization’s data. This can enable data sharing across multiple lines of business units, implement governance automation and enforce a strategic data management framework. 

MDM solution usually consists of various stages that include data acquisition (batch or real-time), data quality checks, data integration, data matching, reconciliation, enrichment and application of data governance rules. 

Business use cases for MDM include the below-focused areas: 

Master Data typically falls into the following areas: 

• B2B and B2C master data management 
• Product master data management 
• Supplier master data management 
• Reference data master data management

Use Case: Banking Customer MDM

A golden source refers to the authoritative and reliable source of customer data that is used as the primary reference for all other systems and applications that use customer data.

A single customer view based on a golden record facilitates banks to gain a 360-degree view of their customers and enables them to provide personalized and targeted services, such as cross-selling and up-selling opportunities. 

As you can see from above, the usage of Golden source data helps banks to make informed decisions, provide better customer experiences, manage risks, comply with regulations, and improve operational efficiency. 

Golden Record Construction

Best existing record 

The best existing record is the one that is considered the most reliable and complete. To determine the best record, organizations should implement data quality checks to identify inconsistencies, errors, and duplicates across different data sources. This will help to benchmark the records with qualifying attributes like completeness, accuracy, timeliness & consistency. 

The best way is to assign priority to each source and compute a priority for each record according to its degree of population and the quality of its content. This record can be made a golden record from the group. 

Overall, the best existing record in CMDM from among the data coming in from multiple sources, is the one that is the most accurate, complete, up-to-date, reliable, and consistent with other records. It is important to establish a process for selecting and maintaining the best record to ensure data quality and integrity. 

Synthetic golden records 

Synthetic golden record is a type of record that is created by combining the best information from records within a cluster and reconciling data from multiple sources to create a single, comprehensive view of a customer. 

Synthetic golden records are created by identifying the matching and non-matching records across various sources, reconciling any differences, and creating a consolidated view of the customer’s information. The resulting synthetic golden record contains the most accurate and up-to-date information about the customer basis parameters like the most common value, longest string, or most recent value. 

Synthetic golden records are particularly useful when dealing with substantial amounts of customer data from multiple sources, as they provide a way to create a unified view of customer information. They can also help to reduce data duplication, improve data quality, and streamline customer data management processes.  While creating synthetic golden records careful data governance and management processes need to be implemented that result in accurate, complete, and up-to-date customer information.  

In conclusion  

This document has given a brief overview of Customer MDM concepts with a focus on golden record view of customer creation. If you want to review your current MDM applications and setup or discuss new MDM requirements, our Solution Architects will be glad to help you out. 

Please do contact us at info@datavium.com