This is the third post in our 'Internet of Things' blog series. If you missed the first posts, you can find them here and here.

Any organization wanting to be the next market game changer has to put innovation on the top of their agenda. Top leaders know that innovation is a way of thinking, not just a project, and therefore CIOs are tasked by the CEO to have a flexible and trusted infrastructure that supports innovation. According to Gartner’s Pace Layered Application Strategy: “(...)competing goals often lead to strategic misalignment”. A key concept to succeed is to have “Business and application organizations collaborating on innovations, ideation and experimentation”¹.

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A sound analytical strategy encourages activity and embraces a self-service methodology but also provides guidance and oversight from those close to the data.  This governance will be instrumental in preventing data quality issues, superfluous analyses and misguided decisions.  Enter master data management (MDM).  The technologies and processes underlying a typical MDM strategy not only provide oversight and access control, but also enable companies to track the origin and lineage of data to ensure safety and consistency in the decision process. 

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In 2007, ConAgra Foods Inc., the makers of Peter Pan peanut butter, found itself in the middle of a nightmarish recall. A salmonella outbreak had infected 700 people nationwide in 39 different states, sending 20% of those to hospitals for advanced treatment. At the root of the issue was tainted peanut butter produced at a plant in Georgia. The facility had several food safety issues: an old peanut roaster was not uniformly heating, a previously damaged sugar silo had openings that allowed entry to birds and insects, and a leaky roof was adding unwanted moisture to the production process. ConAgra ended up forking out close to $300 million in fines and restitution. 

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“That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet…”

We take it for granted. When we call a friend in France, we automatically add the internationally recognised dialling code of 33. An entire orchestra is tuned to an A at 440 Hertz frequency. Even nature has its golden ratio for reference when designing the arrangement of petals in a flower.

There are many bits of reference information that are internationally recognised and in common usage – grocery bar codes, medical conditions, industry classifications and postcodes to name but a few. Some reference data can also be specific to just one sector, where it can support a unique business process or describe the configuration of an individual application.

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We've got a challenge for you – We know you love DATA, that's why you're reading the Stibo Systems' blog. (If you're a first time visitor, Welcome! We blog about all sorts of data-related issues and solutions.)

We're all about breaking down data silos, but do you know what that actually means? Or how that is really done?  

The answer is MDM or Master Data Management. You may have an idea what it is, but how much do you really know?

We challenge you to take our quiz "Master Data Management - Rookie or Expert?". Maybe you’ll learn a few things or maybe you already know everything there is to know. Go ahead, Give it a try!

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The annual company report. The weekly project management meeting. The current sales forecast.

Important decisions are made every day based on the content of such reports and documents. But where does the information that supports this content come from? How is it defined? Who says it’s appropriate to use and for what purpose?

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It’s possible that you might not know how many people work for your company. It’s also possible that you might not be aware whether your regular employees have access to services that differ from those for contractors or volunteers. It’s worth considering how personal data is being used across the company for resourcing purposes, say, or to meet legal requirements or health and safety regulations.

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We’ve all seen these Design versus User Experience (UX) pictures on LinkedIn and Twitter. It’s a great illustration of the eternal battle between how a designer intends for their design to be used and how the end user uses it in a completely different way.

Image: bit.ly/1XuAG0V

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With 2015 coming to a close we are recapping our top 5 blog posts for the year.  Each post was selected from our readers and covers topics within Master Data Management ranging from; time-to-market, Product Information Management, Food labeling, and creating a strategic road map for an MDM initiative. 

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Star Wars and Master Data Management. That’s right, your two favorite topics in one place!

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