What is master data management? Ensuring a single source of truth

Master data management (MDM) is a set of disciplines, processes, and technologies used to manage an organization’s master data. Master data is data about business entities or objects (customers, suppliers, employees, products, cost centers, etc.) around which business is conducted. It is used to provide context to transactional data and is typically scattered around the business in various spreadsheets, applications, and even physical media. Gartner defines MDM as “a technology-enabled discipline in which business and IT work together to ensure the uniformity, accuracy, stewardship, semantic consistency, and accountability of the enterprise’s official, shared master data assets.”