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Following any MRO master data cleansing project, the challenge becomes maintaining ongoing integrity and consistency of the master as new records are created and existing ones are modified. There are several strategies and solutions available for maintaining your data—also called data governance—yet the most common question companies ask themselves is, “Should we handle governance internally or outsource?”
At first, it may seem more cost effective and realistic to manage data governance internally, however, there are many factors that need to be considered to truly determine whether internal governance is actually more cost effective. Whether you’re already dealing with ongoing governance or just about to start your first data cleansing project, spending some time considering your options is a crucial step that can save your organization time and money.
Let’s start by looking at some of the potential pros and cons of internal data governance versus outsourcing.
Pro: Saving Money?
The major “pro” brought up when considering internal data governance has to do with cost savings. In theory, you’ll save money by not signing a contract with a third-party. However, when it really comes down to it, that isn’t always true. If your employees are suddenly responsible for tasks that take them additional time, that means their regular tasks are going to be completed on a slower timeline. Your productivity may change, or you may even need additional workers. Or, perhaps more likely, the data cleansing task will fall to the wayside when pitted against completing more urgent tasks.
So when you look at the full picture, that pro isn’t entirely true. Instead, you see that internal cleansing can lead to additional workloads that affect productivity or lead to data being ignored, ultimately affecting your bottom line.
Despite your initial instinct, it can be a better financial decision overall to partner with a third-party for data governance.
Con: Data Quality
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, manufacturing companies specialize in producing finished goods, not in data cleansing. This statement is not intended to be an insult to manufacturing companies; it is simply a fact, just like a data cleansing company does not specialize in manufacturing finished goods. For this reason, internal MRO master data management can often yield poor results and end up costing companies more money in the long run.
But how? Data cleansing seems so straightforward, right? In some ways, it is. But if data cleansing was truly straightforward, then why would any company need to cleanse their data in the first place? If it was easy, then every manufacturing company would have perfectly standardized and formatted data, and we know this is not the case.
When left up to internal resources with limited part knowledge and cleansing expertise, the naming convention, contents, and format of item descriptions are at the mercy of user interpretation. Undoubtedly the result is inconsistently cleansed data.
Con: Lack of Tools
Additionally, manufacturing companies do not have access to the automated cleansing tools that a service provider would. Most likely, your entire internal process would require manual sorting, researching, validation, and formatting. As you can imagine, this can be extremely laborious and potentially generate inconsistency and inaccurate information.
Even if you have a tool—for example, SAP—it's likely not as sophisticated as what data cleansing specialists use, and your users don’t have the same specialty in using the tool for the purpose of data governance. Data cleansing companies often have their own, proprietary software and processes that are tailor-made for data cleansing and governance. For example, IMA uses our in-house platform, uManage Pro, which delivers unmatched cleansing power.
Without the proper tools to enable accuracy, consistency, and efficiency, maintaining the MRO master internally suddenly became a much more costly and time-consuming task.
Pro: Faster Turnaround?
If you do all the work yourself and don’t have to rely on another party, it’s faster—right? Well, not exactly.
It is true that when you manage all of the work, you set your own deadlines. But when you’re trying to balance additional projects on top of your existing work, you’re not necessarily going to be able to meet those deadlines. At least, you might not be able to meet them with the quality of work that your data requires.
While third-party data governance providers do have some turnaround time required for you to receive back your cleansed data, they are extremely skilled at providing cleansed, high-quality data back quickly. When you sign a contract with a provider, you will outline exactly what the expected timeline is for the return of cleansed items. In most cases, you can also enact terms for urgent items. As long as you make sure to communicate openly with your provider and set the terms to fit what you need, turnaround from a third-party can be faster than what it would take in-house to get data to the same standards.
Pro: More Flexibility?
When you looked at third-party services, you may have determined that many of them don’t work for you because they don’t adapt to your specific needs. By managing your MRO master data in house, you can follow exactly the procedures you want with the standards, schemas, and formats you need.
However, there are also providers like IMA who offer customized solutions. Not only can these flexible providers meet your needs, but they can offer their expertise in data management and serve as an incredibly valuable resource when figuring out the best, most efficient solution for your data process. For example, we’ve seen clients come to us with schema requirements that they needed because their data had “always been that way.” But on further inspection, they realized they didn’t need to keep it in the same format. Their users actually found it more helpful to use IMA’s recommended format.
By going it alone and not consulting with a third-party, you may lock yourself into more rigid, inefficient options.
How to Handle Your Project
To capture the best of both worlds, we suggest you select a third-party service provider, preferably the company that completed the original data cleansing project, to assume the daily data governance activities. Next, since every company wants ownership of their data, establish an internal data governance team to act as the gatekeeper to review and approve all cleansed data and updates before they are entered into the live ERP system. Using this methodology, you should only be paying for the updates that are processed and can rest assured that each item meets the pre-defined project standards, is rich with validated attribute enhancements, and is consistent amongst product groups. By doing so, you will reduce internal costs and effort, while maximizing data quality and return on investment.
As you plan your next data cleansing and governance project, be sure to consider all your options:
Are you looking to manage the catalog internally, purchase an automated software package, or contract a third-party service provider?
Do you have adequate internal resources that can be allocated to data governance? Do these resources have sufficient part knowledge and cleansing expertise?
Do you have access to the necessary tools and software applications to capture required information and properly format descriptions?
Remember time is money and…well, poor results are wasted money.
How IMA Can Help
IMA is an experienced data cleansing and governance provider with a proven track record and powerful tools to help you reach your data goals. Whether you’re looking for something “out-of-the-box" or a custom approach, we have your solution! When it comes to data governance, we even offer multiple options—from full to partial governance services—meant to fit exactly what your organization needs.
For more information on our data cleansing and governance services, check out the Services page on our website or contact info@imaltd.com.
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