The Importance of Business Rules in Master Data Management

It seems so simple, setting up new customers, suppliers, or materials. But when everyone does it their own way, it becomes impossible to generate high-quality reports.

The Need for Business Rules
To provide some guidance in this regard, Business Rules are a necessity. Business Rules consist of lists of rules that specify what is allowed or not. The better these rules are formulated and adhered to, the better the quality of the master data will ultimately be. With the help of Business Rules, you can measure the quality of your data and implement targeted actions. These actions can include mass changes when an incorrect value is selected in a field. Moreover, data analysis might reveal that the followed process was inadequate, prompting a procedural adjustment.

Practical Example
An example of a business rule is: when a customer requests a digital order confirmation or invoice, a valid email address must be linked. In practice, we have observed that this can go wrong at times. While the master data of customer information specifies the customer’s desire for a digital invoice, an email address is often overlooked. This results in the creation of an output document that cannot be sent because no email address is available. To the ERP system, it may appear as though the invoice has been printed and processed, but the customer ultimately receives nothing.

Impact of Business Rules on Data Quality
Ultimately, as data quality improves, it leads to stronger reporting, better decision-making, smoother process flows, and, most importantly, more satisfied employees and customers. This is why we can assert that Business Rules, along with related processes, are among the most critical ingredients for a company to comprehend its data and its utilization.

Tentive Data Management Consultants

The data management consultants at Tentive are experienced in improving data quality, helping drafting and validating business rules and set up roles and responsibilities (data governance), and using them to generate operational overviews and KPIs.

Is your organization eager to dive into data governance, but lacking the manpower or data management expertise? Feel free to contact us; we would be happy to discuss options with you.