I have spent the past year as a SAP Master Data Governance consultant again, taking a break from ABAP / BTP / Fiori build management and delivery.

As part of this journey, I realized that many still see MDG as a hurdle in their process. “Our staff used to create the master data, What value does it bring?“. MDG offers value in the solution that captures the Governance (data enrichment and approval) process. It formalizes items that would otherwise be off-system. Unfortunately, this part of MDG’s capability is also the one most noticed by users who previously used SAP without MDG.

There’s a need to constantly communicate that while it does provide the governance process, a significant part of the benefit that MDG presents is in the Data Quality and Consolidation  tools it brings on the table.

MDG supports the lifecycle for growing data business rules. In an example where an incorrect relationship spans thousands of records, the data cannot be manually updated individually.
And that data issue could have been invisible, eating away on process efficiency. It is also difficult to correct even if detected. For commercial enterprises, that would just present itself as an unusually high operational cost or low customer engagement. For highly regulated environments, the consequences of bad data could potentially be disastrous if not caught early.
Here, MDG provides the tools for evaluating and monitoring and actioning data issues in a methodical manner. Moreover, it can store the rationale and history for the changes.

An MDG Implementation requires that there’s a group responsible for the management of the Data Quality. The processes for managing data quality is not difficult to implement – but it does require a little maturity to realize the potential.

Out-of-the box, MDG is a SAP-centric tool. It’s a great fit for SAP Business Partners, Materials and Finance Objects. It requires modelling if the object outside that scope. It provides a central space to manage the quality of Master Data and serves as a replication source for that information.

{ Looking up from my immediate work – there’s a plethora of interesting technical innovations like generative AI in SAP Build Code. I can’t help but keep an eye on developments in S4HANA 2023 Fiori and BTP. }