Rich analytics are essential to the optimal operation of a media business. With advanced business metrics driving strategic insights, media executives can be more effective in extracting maximum value from their content and from the complex media processes within today’s dynamic media marketplace.
As media enterprises combine information from multiple systems, data inconsistencies between those systems prevent detailed reporting and analysis. Furthermore, normal data entry errors and local operational requirements complicate consistent processing.
Until now, to solve this issue, organizations have focused on enforcing data entry standards across their different transactional systems. However, strict data entry policies slow down business. They delay new data entry. They create operational problems. They delay reconciliation.
Industry experience has shown that the magnitude of effort necessary to achieve standardized data entry is overwhelming and impractical. When standardization fails, the typical solution is to have IT fix data entry shortcomings. This invariably occurs only when inconsistencies are discovered.
The only viable solution is to create a central database that fully addresses the acquisition, creation, and maintenance of corporate records mapped to local values across each of the transactional systems, automatically integrating those transactional systems into the business workflow. Ideally, this should be done with the flexibility to change reporting relationships dynamically without disrupting the entire business. When this is the case, the entire enterprise is empowered to take advantage of accurate, consistent data.
A centralized data management solution can streamline and automate the entire mapping process, thereby eliminating complexity and dramatically reducing the need for manual intervention. It should have tools that continually search for and locate duplicate records, import new entries, identify unmapped values, and map records as needed. As a result, IT staff would be freed from the need to perform urgent, yet mundane, data maintenance tasks.
In short, a comprehensive master data management solution specifically tailored for media can make it easy for enterprises to acquire the sophisticated and accurate insights they need to adapt quickly to the constantly changing requirements of the modern media ecosystem. It gives them the tools to be more agile and more competitive a rapidly evolving marketplace.
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