Stibo Systems is helping to advance the market for Master Data Management (MDM) with its latest release. The Stibo Systems 9.2 release of it multidomain MDN solution provides users with new features to manage, organize and make sense of data.
Stibo Systems is a division of Denmark-based Stibo A/S, an IT and print technology multinational that was founded in 1794 as a printing company. As part of the 9.2 update, the multidomain MDM system gains enhanced machine learning capabilities to help manage data across multiple data domains.
The update, which became generally available Sept. 4, also includes a bundled integration with the Sisense BI-analytics platform for executing data analytics on the multidomain MDM.
Though MDM is not a term that is heard as often in recent years as big data, Forrester vice president and research director Gene Leganza said MDM is as relevant now as it ever was, despite the significant changes that have come about in the big data era.
"For one thing, the years of stories of firms doing innovative things with data and analytics have gotten business leaders' attention and anyone who was unaware of the value hidden in their data assets has gotten the message that they cannot afford to leave that value unmined," Leganza said. "For these data management laggards -- and there are a lot of them -- newfound enthusiasm to improve their data capabilities usually means getting started with data governance and MDM."
Simply collecting data, though, isn't enough. Leganza said all data analysis is a "garbage-in-garbage-out" proposition, and the reliability and trustworthiness of data has never been more important as organizations work harder to evolve into data- and insights-driven cultures. Keeping data clean and usable is where multidomain MDM plays a key role.
The years of stories of firms doing innovative things with data and analytics have gotten business leaders' attention and anyone who was unaware of the value hidden in their data assets has gotten the message that they cannot afford to leave that value unmined.
Gene LeganzaVice president and director of research, Forrester
Looking at Stibo Systems, Leganza said that in the last few years, the vendor has significantly bolstered its general MDM capabilities and Forrester included them in the Q1 2019 Forrester Wave evaluation of MDM systems, in which Stibo was ranked a "contender." He noted that the evaluation did not include the features in the new 9.2 release, and adding machine learning to improve data quality and governance is something Forrester had noted customers were asking for.
"This new release strengthens both their product domain dominance as well as their general MDM capabilities, which should serve them well in the marketplace," Leganza said.
Multidomain MDM
The MDM system is a purpose-built platform for mastering data and the various domains that go into that, whether that be product domain, customer information, supplier details or vendor locations, said Doug Kimball, vice-president of global solution strategy at Stibo Systems.
Kimball said that with a multidomain MDM, Stibo Systems customers can connect data across different pieces of their domain. For example, a company could map customers to products and know where those products are by location, he said.
A sizeable amount of what goes into multidomain MDM is data governance, enabling data traceability, as well as compliance with regulations. The Stibo Systems platform brings data in from wherever a company has it, be it a database, data lake, ERP system or otherwise, Kimball said.
"We do the de-duplication, the matching of records, the address verification and all the things that make the data good and usable," he said.
9.2 enhancements
Among the changes in the 9.2 release, Kimball noted, is that the Cassandra database is now a database option, providing an alternative to just running an Oracle database.
For the product master data management component, Stibo Systems now has a partnership with Sisense to deliver embedded analytics. It's now possible to create data visualizations and actionable insights that are effectively embedded in the user experience, Kimball said.
Also in the new release is an application called Smartsheet that can help to bridge the gap between multidomain MDM and a simple Excel spreadsheet.
Kimball said Stibo Systems is working on a new user experience interface that is intended to make it easier for users to navigate the multidomain MDM. The vendor is also working on MDM on the edge.
"We're looking at the fact that you've got all these devices out there: smart watches, refrigerators, beacons, creating all this additional data that needs to be mastered," Kimball said. "The data is on the edge, instead of being in traditional data stores."
