Top Five Criteria for CDI-MDM Systems Integrators ; A key area of differentiation for methodologies is the level of integration between the visually oriented process-mapping tools and the actual process generators that feed the rules engine to drive the master data policies captured in the methodology.

The focus of this column is to outline the top five technical evaluation criteria used by large IT enterprises to identify their systems integrators (SIs), who help implement their next generation of customer data integration (CDI), master data management (MDM) and/ or data governance initiatives. We need to understand that few SIs have experience with one major CDI-MDM project - let alone more than one in the industry. In-flight projects are no substitute for experience, but they represent a vote of confidence from the industry in that SI's capabilities as well as a commitment by the SI partner to the industry. What are the top five technical evaluation criteria for the services of systems integrators on CDI-MDM projects? 1. Extensible data governance methodology and accelerators. Too many times, clients report, "Our SI doesn't understand us." This translates to, "We asked for a CDI or MDM proposal and what our SI gave us was a rehash of its enterprise data warehouse method." A key area of differentiation for methodologies is the level of integration between the visually oriented process- mapping tools and the actual process generators that feed the rules engine to drive the master data policies captured in the methodology. Given the current lack of integration among the various CDI-MDM design and methodology tools with the actual CDI-MDM platforms, evaluators of SI's offerings need to pay close attention to the level of integration today as well as the future for any such data governance tools on the SI's roadmap (or how the SI plans to leverage future tools from the software partners).