SAP NetWeaver Master Data Management (SAP NetWeaver MDM) is an enabling foundation for enterprise information management – providing a single version of master data for supplier, product, customer, or user-defined data objects in heterogeneous environments.

Working across disparate systems, SAP NetWeaver MDM ensures cross-system data consistency through interactive distribution. It integrates business processes across the extended value chain, delivering functionality to enable:

• Master data consolidation – Consolidate master data into a centralized repository – after cleansing, normalization, and enrichment with integrated SAP BusinessObjects Data Services software – to improve process efficiency, company-wide analysis, and reporting. Consolidate and create the best version of master data objects with the best data from disparate systems. Associate related rich content such as images, PDFs, video, and audio to augment the data store.
• Synchronization and distribution of master data – Enable consistent data maintenance and distribution. Use global attributes to ensure that all systems receive the same master data during distribution – while allowing for additional attributes to be added to the distributed data objects in the target systems to accommodate different regional, divisional, or departmental requirements. Distribution can be controlled, visible, and traceable, with active status management at each distribution step.
• Centralized management of master data – Supports company-wide data governance by ensuring that central control of master data begins as soon as the data is created. Centrally created master data can subsequently be distributed to client systems as required using interactive distribution.
• Rich product content – Manage any kind of unstructured content, including Adobe PDFs and images. Single-pass data normalization plus a high-performance parametric search function provide an interactive method of working with rich product information. You can publish restructured and reformatted extracts or incremental updates of your repository content and distribute them in several delimited text and XML formats to different subsidiaries, divisions, or trading partners.
• Integrated customer data – Build a reliable customer-data repository to efficiently coordinate customer processes across business units and locations. Impact the top line with cross-selling and up-selling support, make better-informed decisions, and improve your customer-facing activities.
• Managed vendor data – Consolidate and manage vendor data from SAP and non-SAP sources to eliminate administrative miscommunication, reduce supply chain delays, and support global business intelligence initiatives. Identify and match suppliers, removing duplicate suppliers in the same system and finding equivalent suppliers in acquired or merged companies – and incorporate external validation services such as Dun & Bradstreet DUNS numbers.