Amazon Web Services (AWS) launched in 2006 and has been recognized as a pioneer in the cloud space, providing a robust platform that has fundamentally transformed how organizations deliver products and services to their customers.
The cloud market continues to mature and AWS’s dominance is being increasingly challenged by formidable competitors such as Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud as well as more stealthy competitors in Asia.
For many, the monthly AWS bill is a thorny subject only moderately addressed through the combination of reservations, prepayments, and on-demand systems use.
Many organizations still cling to on-premise infrastructure or have spread their risk across multiple cloud vendors.
The Cloud Computing Landscape
This behavior mirrors the circumstances of the market as a whole. As organizations embark on attempts to move workloads and systems to “the cloud”, they often face myriad choices from cloud providers and technologies. Many are difficult to do direct comparisons with and operationalizing their use requires some distinctive manpower considerations.
Each organization’s strategy is unique, shaped by specific requirements, existing infrastructure, and business goals. While the agility, flexibility, and cost benefits of cloud computing are widely acknowledged, organizations also prioritize the maturity and reliability of the solutions they choose. This is particularly true for master data management solutions, where the stakes are high due to the sensitive nature of the data involved.
Many cloud-based MDM solutions have emerged in recent years, promising speed and flexibility. However, a significant concern remains in the maturity of these solutions.
Many are relatively new to the market and may lack the tested, enterprise-class functionality and scalability that organizations require. This may lead to a lack of trust, especially when compliance with regulations is at stake. Organizations must ensure that their cloud MDM solutions not only meet their immediate business demands but also adhere to stringent data security and regulatory requirements. Since Pretectum CMDM falls into this class of platform, a newcomer to the market, a SaaS-based solution focused exclusively on customer master data, it presents as requiring some degree of caution when being considered.
As a consequence, we thought to provide you with some facets to consider as you critically evaluate whether a SaaS CMDM solution is a good choice for you, and Pretectum CMDM in particular.
Key Considerations for Cloud-Based MDM
As you consider our cloud-based CMDM solution, or any other for that matter, there are several critical areas that you ought to focus on to ensure success, and to provide assurances to your stakeholders.
Completeness of the Solution
One of the most pressing challenges organizations face is the completeness of any solution. Many cloud MDM offerings remain relatively immature, businesses often find themselves piecing together a comprehensive MDM solution using tools from multiple vendors. This fragmented approach can lead to inefficiencies and increased complexity. A comprehensive cloud-based MDM solution would integrate or natively provide several capabilities—such as a data catalog or support for integrating a data catalog, data integration with systems in general, data quality management, data enrichment, and a level of business process management— all in a single offering. By leveraging an end-to-end solution, organizations can streamline their operations and focus on deriving business value from such initiatives.
Pretectum CMDM provides two data catalog elements of note, a relationships map, and a library of customizable data classification tags that serve as data classifiers as well as a business glossary. In terms of integrations, Pretectum CMDM offers bidirectional integration with sources via connectors and targets via a publish and subscribe “pub-sub” model where target applications retrieve data via APIs. Data Quality management is integral to the configuration of schemas and the application of those schema rules to the data contained in the system and data enrichment is furnished through 3rd party integrations according to the needs of each customer. BPM is a premium offering.
Prioritizing Data Security
Data security is paramount in the realm of any system particularly MDM systems due to the highly sensitive nature of master data. Sensitive information is common in customer master data systems and personally identifiable information (PII), including names, addresses, and even critical data like Social Security numbers are quite commonplace. The potential risks associated with data breaches can be devastating, making it essential for organizations to prioritize data security in their cloud MDM strategies. This includes implementing robust security controls for both data in motion and data at rest. Organizations must evaluate their cloud solutions to ensure they meet the highest standards of data protection, especially in light of evolving regulatory landscapes.
With Pretectum CMDM we take special care of handling customer data for all these reasons. A sophisticated and highly configurable RBAC model enables very fine-grained permissions. Data is logically partitioned using numerous criteria and data at rest and in motion is encrypted and only transferred through secure methods. Data masking and comprehensive logging and audit reporting provide more assurances to data owners about the correct and proper handling of customer data in light of the many data privacy and PII data handling regulations across the globe.
Modular and Phased Implementation
Transitioning to a cloud-based MDM solution is considered rarely straightforward in nature. Organizations typically do not implement a full end-to-end MDM solution all at once. Instead, best practices suggest adopting a phased approach, starting with simpler use cases and gradually progressing to more complex implementations. Such a strategy allows organizations to realize quick wins and demonstrate value early on. This can help secure buy-in from stakeholders. Modular MDM solutions enable organizations to start small, tackle “low-hanging fruit” projects, and scale their efforts as they gain experience and confidence in their MDM capabilities.
This big bang approach to MDM adoption is one of the principal reasons why we focus exclusively on Customer Master Data Management with Pretectum CMDM. The characteristics of customer data are relatively ubiquitous, the value of good quality customer data is also well understood and the risks associated with poor management of customer data are legend. By focusing only CMDM implementation you constrain your risks, test your internal policies and infrastructure and the palate that you business has for more rigorous management of data.
Embracing Hybrid Cloud Solutions
The growing popularity of hybrid cloud solutions reflects the need for organizations to balance the cost benefits of public cloud infrastructure with the customization and security offered by private clouds. Hybrid clouds provide the flexibility to deploy applications quickly while ensuring that sensitive data remains secure and compliant with regulations. This approach is particularly advantageous for organizations with stringent latency or privacy requirements. A hybrid MDM strategy allows organizations to leverage the strengths of both public and private clouds, ensuring that master data is accessible for real-time analytics while maintaining the necessary security protocols.
Pretectum’s approach to supporting the hybrid context for customer master data management is through a variety of approaches to implementation. Depending on the specific circumstances of your organization, any one of four different approaches to customer MDM can be considered ranging from Registry through Consolidated, Co-Existent, and Centralized. In all four approaches the ‘other’ systems of record can be anywhere in your data landscape, on-premise, or in the cloud. Additionally, integration with other platforms such as CDP, CDP, MDP, DW, R&A, ERP, CRM, and more, can all be supported according to the needs of the business.
Focus on Future Roadmaps
As businesses evolve, so too do their MDM requirements. Organizations must remain agile and responsive to changing business demands, which often necessitate a focus on future roadmaps. Many organizations initially address customer data challenges, but as they prove the value of MDM, they expand their focus to include more complex use cases involving product data, supplier data, and other critical domains. A forward-looking approach ensures that MDM solutions can adapt to future needs, allowing organizations to capitalize on new opportunities as they arise..
Pretectum CMDM targets some very specific applicabilities to an array of industry segments however the strength of a flexible hub and spoke architecture accompanied by 3rd party enrichment and extensibility through the use of APIs allows an organization to consider a great many uses cases ranging from tight integration with web applications and mobile applications to IVR, call center and analytics applications as well as CRM, ERP and POS.
Data Governance and Stewardship
Effective data governance is crucial for maximizing the value of MDM initiatives. Organizations must define and enforce policies regarding data collection, quality, protection, access, use, and retention. Without a robust governance framework, MDM efforts can falter, leading to increased risks and diminished business value. Cloud-based MDM solutions like the Pretectum CMDM should include features that support governance and stewardship, such as ownership and accountability, consent management, and embedded controls. By fostering a culture of accountability and transparency, organizations can mitigate risks and enhance the overall effectiveness of their MDM strategies.
The fine-grained RBAC capabilities of the Pretectum CMDM accompanied by a flexible federated approach to data management together with the different implementation styles create a composable framework of technology that can be orchestrated and adjusted according to heightened or relaxed customer data management and data governance postures. Put simply, organizations have choices and the adaptable and composable nature of the platform supports adoption in a variety of ways.
Leveraging AI and Machine Learning
The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) including the popular adoption of LLMs (Large Language Models) into MDM solutions is transforming how organizations manage their data. These technologies can automate data stewardship processes, improve data quality, and provide actionable insights to business users. As data volumes continue to grow, organizations must leverage AI and ML techniques to streamline their data management processes and derive meaningful insights from their data. A modern cloud-based MDM solution should harness these technologies to enhance efficiency and effectiveness.
Pretectum CMDM uses a combination of ML, AI, and LLM functionality to achieve certain outcomes. Some of these present themselves in very obvious ways, as in the ability to form queries against the CMDM without much knowledge beyond natural language entry and a clear understanding of what you want to see. Other capabilities support matching and data evaluation to accelerate activities with the platform.
Modern Architecture for Agility
To meet the demands of today’s fast-paced business environment, cloud-based MDM solutions must be built on modern architectures. This might include microservices, which allow organizations to continuously update and enhance their solutions without undergoing significant upgrades. A scalable architecture is essential for accommodating growing data sizes, diversity in data sources, and an increasing number of end users. By adopting a modern architecture, organizations can ensure that their MDM solutions remain agile and responsive to changing business needs.
Pretectum CMDM makes use of AWS serverless technologies in order to support near-limitless horizontal scaling. Built natively for AWS, the platform benefits from a modern componentry architecture that supports continuous development, integration, and deployment. We use a blockchain to ensure that we have tamper proof history of all that has happened to a given record. The multi-tenant nature of the platform means that all customers benefit from the same features and capabilities according to their license entitlements. This is a sharp contrast with many other solution offerings which are either single-tenant monolithic deployments or have constrained technology stacks that make up a great deal of legacy architectures and ultimately technical debt.
Cloud computing and master data management as a topic for discussion is reflective of the current trends and challenges organizations likely face today. As cloud adoption continues to grow, organizations must navigate the complexities of deciding if they want to move workloads and systems to the cloud, and which ones they wish to migrate.
Organizations need to select the right cloud providers and technologies while ensuring that their master data management solutions are secure, comprehensive, and capable of evolving with their business needs.
Pretectum CMDM, like many organization, has a perspective related to these insights that demonstrates a completeness of the solution stack in relation to the demands of the market. We prioritize data security, adopt a phased implementation approach, and embrace hybrid cloud strategies. We leverage modern technologies including AI, ML, and LLMs, so organizations can enhance their customer data management processes and derive greater value from their customer data initiatives with the platform.
Ultimately, choosing the right cloud-based CMDM solution can empower organizations to achieve their business goals while ensuring that they remain competitive in an ever-changing landscape.