The Forrester Wave™: Master Data Management, Q2 2023

Master Data Management Vendor Product Comparisons 2023

Key features and pros and cons of top Master Data Management products:

Informatica - Leaders

Pros:

AI-assisted MDM provides faster time to value and deployment through CLAIRE AI engine
Superior vision focuses on enhancing understanding and acceptance of MDM in digital transformations
Prebuilt industry accelerators across insurance, finance, life sciences, and healthcare
Improvements in AI have strengthened capabilities in automated merging, trustworthiness for survivorship, data governance, and customer 360
Multicloud deployment, ease of use, and customer service

Cons:

On par with competition in providing reference data sources for enrichment, compliance, fine-grained access control, and auditing capabilities
Could be perceived as costly for certain scenarios, leading to lags in user adoption
Customers looking for flexibility in the pricing model

Reltio - Leaders

Pros:

Real-time AI-driven MDM delivers exceptional data quality and customer 360
Cloud-native solution with impressive strategy to be one-stop shop for trusted and reliable master data
API-first approach to deliver master 'data-as-product'
Leading the industry with prebuilt integrations to cloud data warehouse offerings and real-time APIs
Sophisticated ML models capable of integrating entities across domains through built-in entity-graph modeling in real time
Mature product offering is multidomain and includes advanced data enrichment, business templates, and features for compliance

Cons:

Could enhance offering by pivoting from UI-based configuration to automated mapping, consolidation, and lineage for better time to value
Reference customers suggest more transparency in pricing
Better customer support needed
Improved data lineage requested
Would benefit from expanding technology partner ecosystem

SAP - Leaders

Pros:

Mature, governed, and compliant multidomain MDM based on SAP HANA
Modular approach that enables federated master data governance
Large customer base and ecosystem of products and partners
Years of presence in industries enables multiple business templates
Improves data quality with rule-mining and provides governance with auto classification and population
Supports multiple compliance standards across industries with automated validations
Delivers dynamic scaling, sync options, enrichment sources, and audit trail

Cons:

Absence of native lineage
Lagging AI capabilities
Improvements in AI needed to enhance automated integration, traceability, and overall time to value
Reference customers highlighted struggle with non-SAP integrations
Requires technical resources to make other integrations work

TIBCO Software - Leaders

Pros:

Model-driven, domain-agnostic MDM with pricing options
Remarkable range of pricing options with easy tracking and understanding of usage
Exceptional data integration using metadata plane for automation
Scales dynamically with sync triggered as per customer specification
Configurable validations and multiple standards to support compliance
Interconnected domains assist in multidomain experience

Cons:

Actual roadmap doesn't quite live up to innovation plans with comparatively low R&D spend
Limited capabilities in delivering entity 360 views
Limited data intelligence, especially governance
Limited out-of-the-box business templates for key industries
Impacts time to value for customers
Reference customer mentioned lack of industry-specific data domains and accelerator packs

Ataccama - Strong Performers

Pros:

Data intelligence integrated with MDM capabilities
Unified platform approach supports data integration, matching, merging, and enrichment
Embedded data quality validations, stewardship workflows, access control, traceability, and metadata management
Explainable AI for business and technical processes
Cost-effective interconnected multidomain MDM
Integrated support for analytics, dashboards, and data intelligence
Reference customer noted tool is easy to use even for fresh college grads with minimum to no training

Cons:

Lagging scalability is a challenge
Needs to enhance support for product domain with native connectors to PIM and DAM
Needs to scale dynamically and offer multiple sync options
Time to value could accelerate with improvement in configuration
Reference customer complained about spending more than six months for simple go-live due to poor configurations
Strategy lags in terms of partner ecosystem (number and variety) and pricing options

IBM - Strong Performers

Pros:

MDM integrated in data fabric as part of IBM Cloud Pak for Data
Flexibility of deployment on-premises and on IBM-managed cloud services
Differentiated innovation driven by data fabric and metadata capabilities
Role-based access control and multiple compliance standards for various industries
Data integration capabilities along with scalable infrastructure
Standard business templates and data context through metadata scrapping

Cons:

Data intelligence is limited
Limited reference data sources for data enrichment
Lack of traceability of data transformations
Lack of automations leading to longer time to value
Roadmap focuses more on data fabric than on automating MDM capabilities
Pricing is complicated due to mix of consumption, storage, and compute
Declined to participate in full Forrester Wave evaluation process

Precisely - Strong Performers

Pros:

Cost-effective MDM solution
Integrates data enrichment within mastering workflows
Leverages integration capabilities to deliver connected multidomain
Native connectors and preconfigured data governance frameworks
Integration with PIM provides product 360 view
Flexible pricing options ranging from customized to consumption-based pricing
Reference customer praised UI-based configuration

Cons:

Trails in entity mastering and business templates
Knowledge graph, industry templates, fine-grained access control, data encryption, and compliance certifications need improvement
Data intelligence and integration capabilities presently lagging
Reference customer noted entity resolution and survivorship capabilities were not sophisticated enough
Limited partnerships leveraged more for implementations than product innovation

Semarchy - Strong Performers

Pros:

Demonstrates time to value without requiring highly skilled resources
Infrastructure deployment and installation requires only part-time technical support
Multidomain experience with individual domain support
Rule-based data quality and compliance standards
Bi-temporal modeling for traceability
Lower budget solution
Reference customer positively recalled support when go-live exceeded three months

Cons:

Lags in data enrichment
Lack of ML automation in data integration
Limited native reference data and security capabilities
Reference customer critiqued survivorship noting it is challenging and worst when complexity of match and merge increases
Roadmap for innovation is stretched in areas of data intelligence, UI, and architecture
Must compromise on some advanced features available in other products

Stibo Systems - Strong Performers

Pros:

Unparalleled product-driven multidomain MDM
Excels in product 360 and data integration through PIM strength
Data intelligence features like quality rules, workflows, regulatory compliance, and access controls are competitive
On par with vendors in delivering high quality reference data to aid enrichment
Dynamic survivorship using automation
Accurate data validation and classification for improved data matching
MDM Academy helps with training, adoption, and improving utilization

Cons:

Lags in lineage capabilities
Missing hybrid and multicloud deployments (only on-premises and public cloud)
Facing scalability challenges when dealing with high volumes of data
References looking for better customer service and pricing options
Pricing is primarily consumption-based but complex, which impacts transparency
Expansion needed to industries other than retail, distribution, manufacturing, and CPG

Syndigo - Strong Performers

Pros:

Cloud-native multidomain MDM that is flexible and scalable
Content management for product assists in comprehensive product 360
Dynamic scaling and multiple sync options across apps and distributed locations
Matching with continuously trained AI
Meeting compliance using out-of-the-box industry standards
Improving data quality with native checks and validation
Reference customers liked ease of mastering and enrichment

Cons:

Should improve lineage capabilities
Lags in providing dynamic masking and lineage outside of platform
Reference customers looking for better survivorship control and business templates for non-product domains
Limited user adoption of full product line with only one-third of customers using entire product suite
Primarily consumption-based pricing layered with many add-ons restricts pricing flexibility and transparency
Challenges include limited data sources for enrichment

Profisee - Contenders

Pros:

Great for Azure shops
Focuses on pure play MDM capabilities
Adaptive cards integration streamlines actioning and enhances customer experience
Reliable multidomain experience
Data mastering with continuously trained AI
Connectors for reference data
Dynamically scalable with role-based access control
Quality improvement recommendations
Reference customers like multidomain connectivity and improvements in business processes

Cons:

Lags in integration and compliance
Lags in automation and knowledge-graph which impedes data integration, entity 360 view, and ease of use
Falls short on facilitating consent management, compliance validation, and certification
Vision lags in addressing key customer needs like augmented data quality or unified data governance
Two product editions offer some pricing flexibility but full matching capabilities only on Enterprise Edition
Requires access to skilled technical resources for integrations

Prospecta Software - Contenders

Pros:

Flexible pricing MDM with consumption-based and customized options
Supports customer 360 with multiple prebuilt models and persona-based customer views
Serves multiple industries with templates
Supports federated governance
Delivers remarkable time to value when SAP systems are involved
Low-cost, SAP-friendly MDM platform
Reference customer praised continuous customer support and improvement of platform as demanded

Cons:

Could benefit from data quality advancements
Lags in native enrichment, traceability, and dynamic survivorship and scalability
Lack of knowledge graph hurts multidomain and entity 360 capabilities
Challenges include compliance validations, access control, and rule-mining for data quality
Delivery roadmap is weaker around improvements in AI, UI, and non-SAP systems integrations
Only a few customers on current product version
Strategic focus limited to asset-heavy industries

Tamr - Contenders

Pros:

Excels in mastering capabilities
Delivers unmatched patented ML for mastering
Natively stored high quality data for enrichment enables faster time to value
Support for real-time data integration and customer 360 views
Metadata management on par with other vendors
Reference customers appreciate customer service, pricing, and matching, merging, dynamic survivorship, and enrichment capabilities
Quick and easy way to consolidate data for specific use cases

Cons:

Data intelligence and multidomain is lagging
Limited interconnection between domains
Needs to support knowledge graph to deliver multidomain experience
Limited masking, access control, compliance standards, and security certifications
Syncs hourly, impeding data scalability
Adoption is low because customers utilize for individual use cases, not on continuous basis
Roadmap missing improvements in complementary capabilities like data lineage, governance, and security

Viamedici - Contenders

Pros:

PIM-led multidomain MDM with impressive adoption and large user base
Exceptional product 360 with PIM enablement
Real-time matching and merging
Integrated data enrichment
Interconnected domains
Prebuilt models and dashboards
Dynamic scaling and multiple sync options
Granular access control
Extensive partnerships spanning systems integrators, technology, and innovation
Pricing options and schemes for multiyear deals offer flexibility

Cons:

Lags in data governance and lineage
Lags in supporting multiple standards with automated validations
Overall time to value lacking due to limited AI in out-of-the-box workflows
Limited policy management, traceability, and governance federation
Reference customer noted limited time spent on mastering but more on integrating with other systems due to limited native connectors
Vision limited to product-related capabilities and industries such as manufacturing and distribution
Innovation and roadmap impacted by limited vision

Syniti - Challengers

Pros:

Scalable low-cost MDM solution
Experience with migration projects helps with good matching, merging, and traceability
Offers knowledge packs for industries
Scales with customer demands
Overall time to value by leveraging unified platform
Partnerships with technology vendors, especially SAP
Integration with SAP products allows integration of other enterprise data
Reference customers appreciate technical knowledge and expertise

Cons:

End-to-end multidomain is challenging
Lags in delivering interconnected domains for multidomain experiences
Limited enriched entity profiles
Advanced AI for data integration, mapping, and classification needs improvement
Automated rule-mining, compliance validations, and fine-grained access control are areas of challenge
Reference customers struggle to sustain in system without skilled resources
Vision focuses on breadth rather than depth of any individual module
Limited innovation in modern MDM capabilities and advanced AI/ML
Declined to participate in full Forrester Wave evaluation process

FAQs

Q: Which vendors are Leaders in 2023?

A: Informatica, Reltio, SAP, TIBCO Software

Q: What does "Leader" mean in Forrester Wave terms?

A: Leaders in the Forrester Wave for Master Data Management demonstrate the strongest current offerings and strategies in the market. These vendors excel in delivering comprehensive MDM capabilities including AI-assisted data mastering, real-time data processing, multidomain support, strong data governance and compliance features, and faster time to value. Leaders show superior vision for enhancing MDM's role in digital transformation and data fabric architecture, innovate with advanced technologies like AI/ML for automated data quality and integration, and maintain strong customer bases with proven implementations across multiple industries. They typically offer cloud-native or multicloud deployment options, robust partner ecosystems, and strong customer service while continuously investing in R&D to advance their platforms.

Q: How do I interpret a Forrester Wave?

A: https://www.forrester.com/policies/forrester-wave-methodology/

Report:

Top Vendor Products for Master Data Management in 2023

Master Data Management Vendor Product Comparisons 2023

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FAQs

Q: Which vendors are Leaders in 2023?

Q: What does "Leader" mean in Forrester Wave terms?

Q: How do I interpret a Forrester Wave?

Reference