\nThe IT team knew that operational effectiveness and trust could quickly erode when sales, marketing, and medical teams lack the data they need to do their jobs. They took a step back to consider what was important to the company \u2014 achieving greater quality, speed, and scalability in serving customers \u2014 and pivoted to a new strategy for MDM.\n<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.veeva.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/challenges-of-using-a-home-grown-mdm-tool.png\")
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\nThe biopharma\u2019s MDM administrator also recalls the hurdles he faced when reconciling multiple data sources in the custom MDM. \u201cEach has its standards, data layouts, and challenges, such as bad data and null values. Some vendors just forgot to put in an address or provide an NPI. Sometimes, we had wrong licenses from different vendors,\u201d he says.\n<\/p>\n
\nIn addition, IT resources became stretched thin when the team received ad hoc requests, partly because users couldn\u2019t self-serve for simple requests. Finally, the traditional scheduling of data processing jobs in the custom solution was problematic. A single, large job running once daily would cause data to queue up. \u201cOur business would have to wait up to 24 hours before seeing the data. We needed a better way,\u201d the MDM administrator says.\n<\/p>\n
A solution to keep pace with growth<\/h2>\n
\nA decade after building the custom data warehouse, the IT team made a switch to ensure internal customers could access the high-quality data they needed. \u201cOur solution was to use ³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏ Network<\/a> to help us master the data from different sources with different layouts into what we call the golden record,\u201d the network administrator says.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWe looked at the pace of innovation at the company we’d be partnering with. Ultimately, this led to our selection of ³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏ Network.\u201d \nOnce the company decided it was time to evaluate requirements for a purpose-built MDM solution, they explored multiple options. \u201cWe looked at the quality of the master data standard integrations, usability, features, cost, and, importantly, the pace of innovation at the company we’d be partnering with. Ultimately, this led to our selection of ³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏ Network and ³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏ OpenData<\/a>,\u201d the IT director says.\n<\/p>\n \nWhen adding data sources to the MDM, the team kept it simple at first, focusing on key sources and targets, and proceeded to add more.\n<\/p>\n \nThe MDM administrator says that with ³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏ Network and OpenData, the IT team runs event-driven data processing jobs as opposed to the old method of traditional scheduling. \u201cAs our ETL processes run, a connection is made to the ³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏ Network API to kick off source and target subscriptions in real time.\u201d Business users are extremely pleased with data change requests in an hour or less, down from a day or more.\n<\/p>\n \nDeveloping match rules by source in ³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏ Network also enables IT to improve data quality in downstream systems. \u201cOur business needs to trust in the golden customer record, and it lends credibility that we’re constantly trying to improve data quality. It’s not a one-and-done process,\u201d the MDM administrator says. To maintain quality, the team uses tools in ³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏ Network to:<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re always reviewing to get better results,\u201d he adds.\n<\/p>\n \nFinally, IT has been able to respond to the business need of a custom view of health system hierarchies, through the use of Hierarchy Explorer in Network. \u201cOnce we built the hierarchy, we needed a business-friendly way to display it, showing how HCPs roll up to healthcare organizations. That\u2019s where the business portal comes in,\u201d the MDM administrator says.\n<\/p>\n \nFor others considering the switch to ³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏ Network, the IT director says, \u201cI recommend spending a lot of time analyzing your source data and running iteration after iteration to lower the volume of work for your data stewards. We worked with ³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏ Network Professional Services to fine-tune our match rules, allowing us to understand the tool better and grow into it. We made a huge leap forward with ³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏ Network.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n– IT Director at a top biopharma<\/span>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.veeva.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/implementation-start-with-a-realistic-scope-1.png\")
<\/p>\nA leap forward in data quality and speed<\/h2>\n
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