Unify and manage your data

Data unification and MDM at a glance

Get a high-level view of the data unification and management and the master data management disciplines

Take it from the top with data unification and management and Master Data Management (MDM). Get the overview here, then see the sub topics in this section to drill down to the details.

What are data unification and management and MDM?

Reltio provides solutions for data unification and management and for Master Data Management (MDM).

Data unification and management and master data management (MDM) are closely related. MDM is a specific type of data unification.
Data unification and management
This process deals with integrating data sets from diverse sources. Data unification refers to the larger process of bringing together data from disparate sources to create a one unified view. It's about cleansing and normalizing data, creating unique identifiers for each entity, and identifying and merging duplicates into trustworthy entities. Data unification considers broad data attributes—like relationships, interactions, transactions, and reference data—and types of data, whether structured, semistructured, or unstructured. Essentially, data unification supports better analysis and more informed decision-making through one unified and comprehensive view of data.
Master data management
This process concentrates on managing key data entities and maintaining a single source of truth. Master data management is more specialized. MDM focuses on governing an organization's core or master data, which often includes critical entities like customers, products, employees, and other core business elements, to create a single, consistent, and authoritative source of truth across all systems and processes in an organization.

Who is this section for?

This content is curated for these Reltio user roles defined in topic About roles:

Business User Data Product Owner Data Steward Developer Reltio Configurator Solution Architect System Administrator

Why would I use data unification and MDM?

If you have a large volume of data that you maintain in multiple sources and distribute frequently, use MDM to align it across your organization.

Unify data to improve data quality and enable your business users to effectively manage risks, find efficiencies, and drive growth by providing:
Trustworthy, interoperable data
Data spread across multiple platforms is prone to inconsistencies, errors, and duplication. Unified data from a rich set of sources leads to trusted and high-quality data sets that can be used across different use cases.
Data-driven decisions
With access to trusted, comprehensive views of all their data assets, companies can better support their decisions, identify trends, and adapt business strategies.
Business responsiveness
Using data from many different sources, like CRM systems, support tickets, and website interactions, helps organizations rapidly gain a 360 view of their data, enabling them to meet market opportunities and customer needs better.
Collaboration
Unification drives interoperable data sets and promotes data collaboration and data sharing across different departments and business units.
Improved productivity
Unifying data cuts down on the time and effort needed to gather and process data, helping teams focus on more strategic tasks.
Scalability and growth
With business growth comes data growth. Data unification gives businesses a structured, well-governed framework , making it possible to grow without getting tangled up in data management.

When would I use data unification and MDM?

Use data unification and MDM when you need to consolidate siloed, fragmented data from multiple sources to create trusted, interoperable data.

The steps in unifying data are:
Consolidate data
The first step is ingesting data from internal and external sources. This data may have different formats, such as structured databases, unstructured text, or real-time streams, and usually has different degrees of quality. The ability to ingest data in real time is important for trusted interoperable data so data latency does not lead to outdated data sets that some users cannot trust for operational use cases.
Cleanse data
After it's collected, data is cleaned and transformed for uniformity. Inconsistencies, missing values, and errors are corrected. Data is standardized and redundant entries are merged into newly authoritative entities.
Store data
Unified trusted data is stored in a repository to support different teams and business processes.
Integrate data
Trusted interoperable data needs to be shared across the enterprise when it is needed where it is needed. Data integration enables timely data mobilization to support different users and systems.

Where do I find data unification and MDM?

You're in the right place with Reltio!

Explore this Reltio Documentation Portal to learn how to improve business responsiveness with Reltio Data Cloud. Find out about our products in topic About products.