How cbs Elevates Master Data Management for SAP Landscapes

As SAP customers advance toward intelligent enterprise architectures, the challenge of achieving trusted, high-quality master data remains a major barrier. Issues such as inconsistent customer and supplier records, fragmented material master data, and duplicated entries continue to undermine digital transformation initiatives. cbs Corporate Business Solutions has positioned its Master Data Management (MDM) portfolio to address this challenge to help organizations get and keep data clean at scale.

Across their global customer base, cbs identifies the same patterns: many organizations perform one-off data cleansing initiatives prior to a major transformation project, only to watch data quality deteriorate again over time. Their MDM framework combines tooling, methodology, and governance to enable lasting results. Anchored by cbs Master Data Validation (MDV) for assessment and cleansing, and strengthened through SAP Master Data Governance (MDG), cbs Lean MDM, and the company’s strategic partnership with SimpleMDG on SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP), cbs delivers an end-to-end approach for improving complex SAP data landscapes.

Getting Data Clean: A Structured Approach

The first pillar of the cbs MDM methodology is a disciplined approach to assessing and cleansing enterprise master data. Using cbs MDV, organizations gain a full diagnostic of master data quality, usage, and structural issues. MDV analyzes data across both SAP ERP and SAP S/4HANA environments, identifying duplicates, obsolete entries, incomplete fields, incorrect codes, and inconsistent settings.

Key benefits of MDM include:

• Faster cleansing cycles using cbs MDV’s guided work baskets, streamlining corrections and accelerating remediation.
• Trend analysis and ongoing monitoring that provide clear visibility into master data quality improvements.
• Reduced data volume through MDV’s evaluation of usage and quality to identify obsolete or unnecessary records.
• Centralized, trusted master data that creates a single source of truth and strengthens end-to-end process stability.
• SAP S/4HANA readiness by using MDV insights to target improvements and prepare master data for migration.

This assessment forms the foundation of the “Get Data Clean” phase. Organizations use the MDV analysis to reduce data volume, standardize master data structures, correct errors, and consolidate multiple data sources.

Keeping Data Clean: Sustainable Governance

Once master data has been cleansed, the next challenge is sustainability. cbs emphasizes that maintaining high-quality data requires a governance backbone that includes standardized processes, automated workflows, data quality checks, and clear ownership models.

This is where SAP Master Data Governance (MDG) and cbs Lean MDM play a key role. SAP MDG provides domain-specific content (Finance, Material, Business Partner, Customer, Vendor, Retail, and Enterprise Assets master data) and centralized processes. Also, the newest element of the cbs portfolio is its strategic partnership with SimpleMDG, a modern, cloud-native master data governance solution running natively on SAP BTP.

SimpleMDG delivers key benefits including:

• Faster, governed processes with a flexible framework for business partner determination.
• High usability and low training effort through an intuitive, business-friendly interface.
• Sustained data quality supported by embedded validation and continuous governance.
• Central maintenance with real-time replication for consistent data across all systems.
• Full audit trails to track and verify all master data changes.

For many SAP customers SimpleMDG provides a lightweight, fast-to-implement, highly flexible alternative on SAP BTP that complements SAP MDG and supports long-term governance disciplines.

What This Means for SAPinsiders

Sustainable MDM unlocks smoother transformation. By combining cbs MDV for upfront cleansing with long-term governance through SAP MDG, Lean MDM, and SimpleMDG on SAP BTP, organizations can reduce SAP S/4HANA migration risk and accelerate go-live timelines. According to cbs, companies that adopted this dual-track approach have reported significant reductions in project delays and improved readiness for large-scale transformation initiatives.

Unified governance increases operational efficiency. cbs reports that technology leaders implementing their MDM framework can expect fewer process interruptions, faster master data cycle times, and more accurate downstream reporting. Market movement toward API-driven integration and governance tools such as SimpleMDG means SAP teams may spend less time firefighting data issues and more time driving strategic initiatives.

Evaluation should focus on long-term quality. SAP customers assessing MDM solutions should weigh domain coverage, data quality automation, integration flexibility, TCO, and workflow adaptability. cbs’s holistic MDM ecosystem demonstrates best practices: start with measurable quality assessment, cleanse systematically, and deploy governance capabilities that scale across both SAP and non-SAP environments.