When we discuss Enterprise Data Management (EDM) we’re almost always talking about how it applies to finance. It’s no wonder. Finance is where EDM has made the biggest inroads and the biggest impact so far. With governmental regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley and intense pressure from stakeholders, such as investors, the CFO has to seriously look at effectively managing data. EDM has enabled organizations large and small to give up their data shadow system habit and get on the “single version of the truth” bandwagon.

A long-term benefit for companies implementing EDM would be the establishment of an end-to-end data integration framework as a shared service model.  Developed once, and reused throughout your enterprise to satisfy the data needs of business units around the globe, this data-integration service transforms cost fundamentals for IT investments, as well as accelerates deployment once in place. It becomes the data-integration “plug and play” that enables business people to tap into their data when needed.

Implementing EDM enables data availability and delivery across organizations. Using it as a data backbone, business users can tap into the data regardless of the BI or analytical tools they use. This is especially important to enterprises that use many BI tools and that have realized that having the right data at the right time is far more important that what BI tool they use. In addition, this framework also can meet the on-demand data that many enterprises need in today’s business environment.

But there are many opportunities for EDM to help an enterprise beyond finance. The finance function may be the groundbreaker, but other business groups are hot on its heels.

• For instance, EDM can enable Marketing and Sales at a bank to focus on a customer’s lifetime value by examining customer banking, credit, mortgage and other account information and then enabling opportunities to up-sell and cross-sell services to customers with the most potential.

• EDM can facilitate the flow of accurate customer feedback and product reliability data that can be used in product development. A medical equipment company might feed clinical data results to R&D to accelerate time-to-market. 

• Managing supply chains and partner relationships for a manufacturing firm requires the granular details of inventory by product, time, vendor – slicing and dicing data, thanks to EDM. 

• Would it be nice if, every month, when the staff creates “budget versus actuals” and “sales to forecast” reports, all the raw data was in place for assessments and analysis? EDM can help here, too.

Where else has your organization used enterprise data management or where do you plan to use it?