Master Data Management – Where IBM and VRM Meet

I’ve been interested and tangentially involved in Vendor Relationship Management (VRM) discussions since the idea was floated and the VRM wiki was started a while ago.  Interestingly (to me , anyway) is the way that big corporations and consumers are both realizing current marketplace challenges and dealing with them with the tools they have at hand.

On the customer side, we have individuals trying to (re)gain control of their own data and decide who to share it with.  This has given rise and support to the concept of VRM. 

Right now this is discussed mostly in a commercial and transactional context, but the concept really has applications reaching in to every aspect of our daily lives.

On the corporate side, there are issues too.  Large customers are watching their data stores grow, and seeing big bills for storage and management of that large and growing mass of information.  They are asking questions like how can we more efficiently (and cheaply) manage growth and storage of this data, and what exactly is in there anyway? 

Many large corporations are not liking the answers they are getting to these questions and are turning to my group at IBM to help them understand and implement tools that help them clean up and organize truly massive amounts of data in a responsible, reliable and efficient way.  That’s where Master Data Management comes in.  We have tools that can tell them who is who and who knows who, also who is a good customer and who is a bad customer, and even who knows a good or bad customer. 

As with VRM, there are all kinds of applications for this kind of technology.  Personally, I see both working hand in hand nicely, and I like the developments I see on both sides in terms of privacy and security of personal data. 

I’ll talk more about this later….in the meantime I declare 2008 the year of VRM…and MDM.  I hope to have some lively discussions about this next week at CES!