Prospecta Software Commits to Solving for Data Quality and Governance with its MDO Offering

Data quality could be outpacing data governance as a customer priority in the world of enterprise master data management. One of the SAP partners at the recent Mastering SAP Connect event in Gold Coast, Australia, Prospecta Software, founded in 2002, offers a master data software product, Master Data Online (MDO), which includes a business rules engine for data quality, assessing DAMA-defined data quality dimensions like accuracy, completeness and uniqueness and also offers data remediation and governance capabilities.  MDO is an endorsed SAP app which provides customers with seamless integration with SAP.

“We see significant growth opportunities in the data quality space, aligned with the needs of good quality master data for digital transformations. One such initiative is SAP RISE,” said Ashish Modi, Enterprise Solutions Architect and COE Head at Prospecta, with previous stints as SAP project leader at Capgemini, Fujitsu and Roche Pharmaceuticals. “Also, data quality is a critically important factor during migrations from SAP ECC to SAP S/4HANA.”

MDO is designed to meet industry standards like UNSPSC and ISO14224, and offers tailored data governance, mass data management, and data quality analytics for key domains — from assets, supply chain to corporate and finance. Leveraging the SAP BTP Integration Suite, MDO enables a unified data approach with tools such as the Data Intelligence Workbench, Data Quality Matrix, and intelligent workflows, allowing organisations to improve efficiency, ensure compliance, and foster collaboration.

The COE that Ashish leads handles pre-sales, solutioning, and customer success, with a focus on enabling customers and maximising the value from the system. The COE is involved in identifying customer requirements, designing solutions, and overseeing delivery assurance, including both direct and partner delivery models. Future investments in MDO include AI-driven chatbots for business insights and expanding integration beyond SAP to other ERP systems.

The business rules engine in MDO defines industry-standard rules and allows customisation based on customer requirements. The engine evaluates data quality dimensions like accuracy, completeness and uniqueness, providing a dashboard view of data quality. Customers can remediate data in MDO, integrate it back to the source system automatically or through governance, or hold it for integration to the new target system such as SAP S/4HANA.  MDO does not differentiate between data quality and governance licensing, treating them as part of the same offering. Prospecta also offers data quality services, including cataloging and enriching data, to help customers correct and improve data quality.

“It’s important to address data quality issues and provide solutions for customers who lack the means to correct data,” added Ashish. “We aim to be a partner in helping customers clean their data and keep it clean.”

MDO has been in market since 2008, and it is continuously evolving with new features and technology based on customer and industry insights. The platform is SMB-friendly and can integrate with various ERP systems, including SAP, IFS, and Maximo.

What this means for Mastering SAP insiders

Learn from those who have gone before. Talk to a few of Prospecta’s existing customers and consider their candid perspectives. One example is an iron ore producer that was faced with data inconsistencies across multiple systems, leading to operational inefficiencies. The company turned to MDO for data cleansing and governance, resulting in improved data accuracy and streamlined operations. Another example is an independent oil and gas producer that needed to migrate and govern vast amounts of data during system upgrades. This company implemented MDO for data migration and governance, ensuring data integrity and compliance throughout the process. And another example is an automotive parts manufacturer that managed material master data in 11 different languages, leading to complexities and errors. The company leveraged MDO to standardise and manage material master data across multiple languages, improving data consistency and reducing errors.

Leverage Prospecta’s industry experience. MDO offers pre-configured data models and workflows tailored for various SAP master data areas, including Materials Management, Asset Management, and Finance. Utilising these templates can streamline data management processes and ensure alignment with industry best practices. MDO supports the incorporation of industry standards such as ISO 14224 and CFIHOS. Leveraging these standards can enhance data quality and consistency, particularly in asset-intensive industries. Also, by integrating MDO with SAP BTP, customers can achieve seamless data synchronization between MDO and SAP systems. This integration facilitates real-time data updates and enhances overall data accuracy across the enterprise.

Conduct proper due diligence on any MDM platform provider. When investigating potential master data management platform providers, SAP customers should look for features like approval workflows, role-based access controls, and audit trails, along with support for defining and enforcing data policies across the organisation and built-in compliance with regional regulations like GDPR, CCPA, or APAC-specific data localisation laws. Further, they should confirm there are solid automated data cleansing, deduplication, and enrichment features, AI/ML-driven anomaly detection and data validation, and real-time monitoring and reporting on data quality metrics. And companies should seek real-time data synchronisation to ensure accurate, up-to-date information across the organisation, along with integration with SAP’s in-memory database technology (HANA) for faster data processing. A key feature of any MDM system should be the ability to be a single source provider for both data quality and data governance.