Semarchy Inc. hopes to help democratize master data management with new software that uses material design principles to simplify the process of data harmonization.

MDM is an approach to linking important data across an organization to a single master file that acts as a common point of reference. The intent is to minimize data duplication and streamline sharing between departments so that everyone has the same definition of data. For example, a customer record in a call center file and a customer relationship management system would refer to the same master record in order to provide a coordinated history of that customer’s interactions with the company.

Closely held Semarchy is calling its new software xDM, with the “x” referring to the mathematical variable they can stand for anything. In line with that, the company says xDM can be used for reference data, metadata, location, SKUs and various other data types. The company asserts that it is trying to move master data management into the hands of business users where it belongs.

“The idea is that business users can become contributors instead of just being consumers,” said Semarchy Chief Executive Salah Kamel. “Instead of raising a ticket with IT when their ETL (extract/transform/load) isn’t working, they can interact with the data and fix it themselves.”

Out-of-synch data is a big problem for many companies, particularly those with large customer bases. It manifests itself in situations like a call center rep being unable to recognize that the caller is an existing customer or a bank offering a new account promotion to a customer who already has one.

No priests

MDM has traditionally been the domain of the high priests of data management, but Semarchy is betting that users will want to get in on the act.

“Do IT organizations want to do this? Probably not, but it’s also probably too late because business functions are moving into the cloud” where the data they create isn’t synched with the records in their production systems, Kamel said.

Semarchy’s product manages integration flows between operational and analytic applications and a master data hub. It connects to existing applications, imports transactional data, consolidates it and links back to the source data. “Our federation engine brings all the records together,” Kamel said. The product includes a set of data governance applications that can be used to define values and attributes, as well as security down to the field level.

Semarchy enables semantic consistency across an enterprise, working from existing business process and information governance rules. The new product uses the material design usability principles developed by Google. For example, material design defines colors that indicate particular actions or highlights a “submit” button only after all the necessary information has been entered in a form.

“Traditionally, you’d find 100 different buttons and actions in an MDM screen,” Kamel said. “An IT person might be able to use it but not my wife. We’ve made classifying and organizing data as simple as using your inbox.”

The xDM platform features the following:

• A step-by-step user interface adapts to business personas within the context of their roles to provide for a simpler authoring experience;
• Context-aware forms, collections, fields, rules, actions, and menus;
• The ability to define display cards, multiple descriptive texts, images, avatar pictures and other descriptive elements;
• Flexible display using grids, lists and tables on any device; and
• Fast, visual interrogation of network relationships to simplify the complexity of links within master and reference data.

Existing users of Semarchy Convergence for MDM can upgrade to xDM without risk of losing existing data or governance processes, the company said.

Pricing is by domain and number of base objects managed. A base object is an entity such as an organization, product or employee. Pricing typically ranges from $100,000 to $1 million based on the volume and type of data.

Image: Pixabay CC