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    Hub Solution Designs, Inc. is a consulting firm which specializes in developing & executing high impact Master Data Management and Data Governance strategies.
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Next Week’s DIG Conference

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I’m really looking forward to speaking at next week’s Decisions, Information and Governance conference in Las Vegas, sponsored by The Palladium Group.
And I spoke earlier this week at the New England Oracle SOA Users Group, talking about Master Data Management as a [...]

Perspectives on the MDM Market

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In this article, we’ll give some perspective on the current state of the Master Data Management (MDM) market.
Well-meaning skeptics have raised doubts about whether MDM initiatives have long-term viability, sufficient ROI or in fact, are just another system. This skepticism is, of [...]

Building the Business Case (Part 4) - Gaining Alignment

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In the previous installments of this series, we covered three key drivers for building your business case: Risk Management, Cost Reduction, and Revenue Growth.
Now, we’ll review the importance of and the process for gaining organizational alignment with your strategy.
When you’re building support [...]

Interview at MDM Summit on DMRadio

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I was interviewed recently at the Spring 2008 MDM Summit in San Francisco.
DMRadio (which broadcasts weekly on DMReview.com) did a broadcast from the exhibit floor, featuring:

Marty Moseley from Initiate Systems
Christopher Dwight from Oracle
Dan Power from Hub Solution Designs
Justin Magruder from Freddie Mac
Richard [...]

DIG 2008 - Decisions, Information and Governance Conference

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A very interesting MDM speaking engagement came up recently, at the DIG 2008: Decisions, Information and Governance Conference in Las Vegas on May 13-15.
The conference organizer, The Palladium Group, says:
DIG is the foremost performance management and analytics conference designed to provide business leaders [...]

Keys to a Successful MDM Program

Master Data Management (MDM) initiatives often seem to begin with the CIO and consequently, the implementation takes on a strong technology focus.
But in today’s article, we want to suggest an approach that’s more likely to succeed in the long run – tying the MDM project to solving an important business problem, and then [...]

MDM Boot Camp at MDM Summit Conference

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At the recent MDM Summit conference in San Francisco, I attended the “MDM Boot Camp” session put on by Aaron Zornes and Ed Allburn with my colleague, Maureen Butler.
I’ve attended five MDM Summit conferences at this point, but never had a chance [...]

MDM Report from DM Review

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I just got the “MDM Report” newsletter from DMReview.com, and it had a good article by Jim Ericson on the MDM Summit held recently in San Francisco.
It also featured our article on “The Politics of Master Data Management and Data Governance“.
I thought [...]

Data Quality: an integral part of MDM

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In a bid to position themselves as leaders in the Master Data Management space, several vendors position their MDM platform as a complete solution.
The truth is that these claims are somewhat misleading. Some claim that Data Governance (a critical component of an [...]

Haidong Song from Oracle at OAUG Conference

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I just attended a great session by Haidong Song from Oracle in the MDM track at the COLLABORATE 08 conference, being put on this week in Denver by the Oracle Applications Users Group (OAUG). 
I’ve known Haidong for several years, from my “previous life” [...]

Evaluating MDM Vendors

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Today, we’ll talk about some criteria you can use to evaluate Master Data Management vendors.
Before you go into “evaluation mode”, it’s important that, on the business side, you first have your MDM strategy chalked out.
And on the technical side, you should have mapped [...]

MDM Summit Trip Report

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Last week’s MDM Summit conference was great, as usual.  Attendance may have been down slightly due to the well-publicized economic situation.  But there were still a lot of “end user companies” in attendance, either speaking or attending to learn more about this fast-growing [...]

Role of MDM and Data Governance in SOA

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As SOA (service oriented architecture) initiatives gain popularity, let’s look at how MDM (master data management) and data governance can dovetail with a SOA strategy.
SOA, although technically a type of IT architecture, is more of an integrated approach to building high-level services [...]

MDM and Data Governance – the Value of Planning

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Building a “Single Version of the Truth” can be more expensive than you expect, and documenting and measuring its ROI requires careful thought.
Good planning is more necessary than ever in an uncertain economic climate. The result of inadequate planning can be misdirected [...]

Gathering of the MDM Tribe

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We’re really looking forward to the MDM Summit conference in San Francisco, which runs from Sunday, March 30th through Tuesday, April 1st.
This is a very exciting space. Over the past few years, we’ve seen the mega-vendors like Oracle, IBM and SAP get more [...]

Our First Six Months

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Hub Solution Designs, Inc. was incorporated in September 2007. At this point in our history, I thought I’d spend a few minutes reflecting on what we’ve done so far and where we’re headed.
Clients: we’ve been lucky to get off to a strong start [...]

Data Governance Critical to MDM Success

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I was reading a whitepaper by Aaron Zornes today (”2007-2008 Scorecards for Data Governance in the Global 5000 Enterprise” ;) and came across an interesting quote:
“Although many organizations have improved end-to-end business processes through CRM implementations, the challenge of developing a unified [...]

Our Monthly Newsletter on MDM Best Practices

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We just published the March issue of our monthly newsletter on MDM Best Practices. 
This issue has a great article on “How to Write an RFP for Master Data Management” by Ravi Shankar of Siperian.  We’ve also got a new team member who [...]

Monthly Column in DM Review’s Online Edition

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I don’t want to interrupt the flow of Maureen Butler’s great series on “Building the Business Case”, but I just spoke to Julie Langenkamp, Editor-in-Chief at DM Review, and I’ve agreed to become a monthly columnist for their online edition. 
The column will run [...]

Building the Business Case (Part 2) - Cost Reduction

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When it comes to building the case for an Information Management strategy, cost reductions alone may generate enough benefits to justify your business case, or they could further enhance your economic arguments.
Here are some examples of where you may uncover potential cost [...]

Building the Business Case (Part 1) - Risk Management

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When you’re building the business case for an Information Management strategy such as MDM, CDI, Data Governance, or Data Quality, start by articulating the business problems or opportunities. By building a compelling case and getting executive sponsorship, you’ll have a stronger chance [...]

A Good Client Site Visit

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Some client quotes at the end of a recent site visit:
“It’s not possible for one person to have all the necessary expertise, so we underutilize a lot of the tools.  We struggle for the fixes, for the process; we don’t know next [...]

Multi-Domain and Federated MDM Hubs: Two Key Considerations

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As the early adopters of Master Data Management are starting to move beyond their single data domain implementations and branching out to other domains, we’re seeing the timely arrival of MDM hubs capable of handling data from multiple domains.  So, what are [...]

Cover Story in “DM Review”

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We wrote the cover story in this month’s issue of DM Review magazine. 
The article is on “The Politics of Master Data Management & Data Governance”, and you can find it at: http://www.dmreview.com/issues/2007_45/10000894-1.html.
Please let us know what you think!

Our MDM Partnership Strategy

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At Hub Solution Designs, our MDM partnership strategy is pretty straightforward.
We are a management & technology consulting firm focused exclusively on Master Data Management and Data Governance.  Our strategy is to partner with all of the leading MDM vendors, because there is no [...]

MDM Business Case Creation & ROI Analysis

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We published another one-page document today on our Business Case Creation & ROI Analysis service offering. Please let us know what you think …

Upcoming Speaking Engagements and Magazine Articles

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It never rains but it pours. It looks like we’re going to be doing two speaking engagements in March & April - at the Spring 2008 MDM Summit in San Francisco, CA, and the Oracle Applications Users Group COLLABORATE 08 conference in [...]

Is There Such a Thing as a “Quick MDM Strategy”?

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Well, the short answer is – “it depends”! Putting aside the conventional answer for the moment, I’d say that a critical first step in achieving a pragmatic MDM strategy is that your company must agree and commit to developing a 3-5 year [...]