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Master Data Management
Definition
Master Data Management (MDM) is the discipline of creating and maintaining consistent, authoritative representations of important business entities across systems.
Common master-data domains include Customer, Product, Employee, Supplier, Location, and Content.
Simple Mental Model
MDM answers: "What is the trusted identity of this thing across the company?"
How It Works
Example:
CMS: Show ID = 784
JW Player: Media ID = ABC91
Advertising: Content ID = 55129
Analytics: Content Key = 9031
These may all refer to the same program.
MDM establishes mappings and an authoritative representation.
Example
CMS
"The Great Show - S1E1"
Video Platform
"great_show_ep01"
Programming
Program ID 81817
Advertising
Asset 500992
A governed master-content entity can map all of them to one canonical identity.
How It Fits Into the Bigger Picture
MDM is related to Dimension Table and Data Governance, but it is broader than analytics.
Master Data can serve operational and analytical systems.
My Company / Real-World Context
Content is a likely MDM challenge in a media organization because the same content may have identifiers in CMS, video, OTT, linear scheduling, advertising, and analytics systems.
CTO Perspective
MDM initiatives can become enormous and expensive.
Start with:
Which business entity is causing enough inconsistency that centralized management would create meaningful value?
Do not start with purchasing an MDM platform.
Questions to Ask
- Which entities exist in multiple systems?
- Which system is authoritative for each attribute?
- How are duplicates resolved?
- How are identifiers mapped?
- Who is the Data Owner?
- Do we need full MDM tooling or a simpler governed approach?
Meeting Scenario
Situation: Your team spends significant time manually mapping content IDs across systems.
Possible response:
"We clearly have a master-data problem around content identity. Let's define which system owns each attribute and the canonical identity we need before deciding what technology is required."
Key Takeaways
- MDM manages authoritative identities across systems.
- It addresses inconsistency and duplication.
- Master Data is broader than analytical Dimension Table.
- Data Governance determines ownership and authority.
- Solve the entity problem before choosing the platform.
Related Concepts
- Data Governance
- Data Owner
- Dimension Table
- Natural Key
- Surrogate Key
- Metadata
- Data Quality
- Entity Resolution