Enterprisewide programs are often designed to improve business processes and business decisions through enhanced information sharing – based on a more reliable foundation of data. For this purpose, these initiatives promise significant organizational benefits along a number of dimensions of value, but, as with any business project, they can also carry significant risks and complexity.

Organizations that have successfully deployed programs  that span the enterprise are prime candidates for a successful enterprise master data management (MDM) initiative; those lacking this experience are at greater risk for MDM failure. However, since the early tangible value of an MDM strategy comes from standardized semantics, consolidated metadata, and most critically, data quality improvement, focusing on these fundamental aspects of MDM reduces the risks while providing practical utility to the data user community.

In this paper we look at the levels of maturity and capability necessary for deploying enterprisewide initiatives, such as comprehensive MDM, and ponder why these initiatives stall. In turn, we will consider the types of value derived from MDM and which tangible benefits can be achieved early in the process. Since many of these concentrate on simplifying and standardizing semantics, managing metadata and improving data quality, this paper suggests that starting with tasks that address those fundamental needs will add value and prepare the organization to take the steps needed to incrementally build the master data capability. The paper also provides concrete actions that can position those fundamentals as the first step in growing a long-term business-oriented enterprise information strategy.