Market Perspectives

Semarchy Brings Master Data Management to Line-of-Business Users

Written by ISG Software Research | Jan 21, 2022 1:00:00 PM

Digital transformation efforts are widespread, with most organizations focusing on the innovative use of data. Business users demand real-time, integrated analytics deployed through a unified platform with built-in machine learning (ML) that delivers the highest level of performance at massive scale. While beneficial for its strategic insights, extensive data analysis conducted by line-of-business users across the organization brings challenges: operational inefficiencies, regulatory compliance, data protection and data accuracy.

With the growing number of interactions collected by organizations through various acquisition points, it is critical to govern these data elements in an agile and measurable environment. Master data management (MDM) software ensures consistent, trusted and quality master and reference data with minimal effort. We assert that through 2024, 7 in ten organizations will continue to increase trust in their data processes with data quality, master data management and other data integrity solutions. Semarchy’s MDM platform — the Intelligent Data Hub — helps organizations manage the underlying data that fuels business intelligence.

Semarchy was founded in 2011 and has rapidly expanded capabilities through a series of investments, acquisitions and partnerships. An investment by Providence Strategic Growth, for example, was earmarked for continued product innovation. The acquisition of Stambia was engineered to enhance data integration capabilities. A partnership with Tata Consultancy Services created opportunities for advanced MDM capabilities.

The Intelligent Data Hub enables line-of-business workers to derive strategic insights from core data assets by integrating business applications and data in an open and shared environment. It quickly accesses critical data across the organization and stores it in a central repository. This enables seamless data sharing between diverse endpoints and a secure consolidated view of data. Additionally, this allows operational, predictive and traditional analytics to share the same master and reference data, business glossary and data catalogs to transform interactions and observations into measurable business value.

Accurate data is critical for business processes and operations, but there are significant challenges to protecting data and ensuring its accuracy. The volume and variety of data sources include external and internal data, structured and unstructured data and on-premises and cloud-based data. Line-of-business users also need direct access to perform data analysis, determine relationships and opportunities, and support decisions. It is critical to collaboratively govern these core data elements in a central repository. Using MDM as part of a data governance strategy is the best way to address these challenges.

The current technology landscape contains a range of different data management tools and technologies to process, manage and analyze data across information systems. Use of advanced technologies — like artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) — is growing, and we assert that by 2025, more than three-quarters of organizations’ data integration processes will be enhanced with artificial intelligence and machine learning to increase automation, accuracy, agility and speed.

These changes demand technology with significant flexibility and resilience. Semarchy’s Intelligent Data Hub brings together information from diverse applications to master and manage data in a cohesive way. AI-supported processes run on top of master, reference and application data for enhanced business outcomes. The Intelligent Data Hub pairs with Semarchy’s xDM, a single software platform for governance, data quality, enrichment and workflows as well as master, reference and application data management.

Organizations are using MDM in both cloud applications and on-premises to support multiple domains and use cases. Semarchy xDM is natively available on most popular cloud marketplaces such as Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform, as well as software as a service (SaaS), all with the same features as the on-premises platform.

Organizations seeking to centralize and manage data from various sources should examine Semarchy for master data management capabilities that emphasize a value-driven approach to design and manage master and reference data. MDM provides a foundation of solid information on which to build operational and analytical processes and increase trust in data quality. Line-of-business workers can manage core data assets at scale without training or development work from IT organizations, integrating business applications and data in an open and shared environment. In this way, analytics can improve business operations, delivering better quality information that leads to better business processes through better decisions.