From necessary evil to strategic asset: building sustainable master data foundations

Challenge

A global manufacturing company was preparing for a major SAP implementation that would significantly change how thousands of products, materials and processes were handled. But beneath the excitement of new capabilities lay a growing problem: master data was treated as a necessary evil rather than the backbone of operational excellence.

As the new ERP template was introduced, the organization faced:

• A surge in new and changed materials, driven by the redesigned system landscape and evolving product portfolio.
• Inconsistent processes across plants, especially between different production technologies and local ways of working.
• A lack of clear ownership and governance, making it difficult to ensure data quality and traceability, critical in an industry where compliance matters.
• A creation process that was often inflexible, manual and error‑prone, hindering day‑to‑day operations and slowing down innovation. 

The company realized that if the ERP transformation was to be successful, it needed to address master data not as a side activity, but as a strategic enabler.

Solution

Rather than treating master data as a technical checklist item, we deliberately leveraged the momentum of the ERP transformation to elevate it to a strategic topic.

The goal was to design future‑proof master data processes, roles and governance, and ensure they would remain sustainable long after the new ERP system went live.

We created future master data processes that were:

• Efficient and intuitive
• Clear in terms of ownership and accountability
• Built around data quality controls, version management, and approval flows

Workshops also explored how to streamline data creation through:

• Templates to reduce errors and shorten cycle time
• Internal workflows to collect data efficiently
• Scenarios and predefined scripts to guide teams through complex change processes

Recognizing that ERP alone would not cover key master data needs, we defined tool requirements to support the newly designed processes, ensuring the future process could be automated and maintained over time.

Results

By treating master data as a strategic asset rather than an afterthought, the organization achieved three transformative outcomes:

• High‑quality, consistent master data, preventing issues that would otherwise disrupt production, planning, procurement or reporting
• Future‑proof roles, responsibilities and processes ensure that data quality remains stable
• More efficient, streamlined ways of working