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BW/BI and MDM

former_member206388
Contributor
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Hi Experts.

Can someone throw a light on the functional difference between BW/BI and MDM? I heard that BI also has the consolidation functionality like MDM. If so then how it is difference from MDM?

What are all the unique features which is there in MDM and not in BI?

Also in what are all the business usecases we can combile BW with MDM?

Please let me know.

Regards

Bala

Accepted Solutions (1)

Accepted Solutions (1)

Former Member
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Hi Bala,

Can someone throw a light on the functional difference between BW/BI and MDM?

To get the concept right, Please refer this [Article|http://www.oracle.com/master-data-management/better-information-through-master-data-management-mdm-as-a-foundation-for-bi.pdf]. Please check page 7/15 onwards, Analytics Example

Go through this Mary example you will get an idea about the role of BW/BI and MDM.

what are all the business usecases we can combile BW with MDM?

where there is need to Reduce cost and gain competitive edge through MDM supported BI analysis in scenarios like Vendor Evaluation, Global Spend Analysis, Top N Customer Analysis(like in example given in above article) etc.

Hope it helps..

Regards,

Mandeep Saini

former_member206388
Contributor
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Thanks for your reply Ravi and Mandeep.

~Bala

Answers (3)

Answers (3)

Former Member

Hi Bala

Listing few points which can throw some light on the queries-

1. BI/BW is OLAP system used for analytics based on Master data as well as transactional data. It helps in analsing the data trends which can be used for multiple purposes- reporting is one of them.

MDM is used and designed to handle only Master data.

2. BI is used for consolidation, data extraction and consolidation, archiving etc but MDM is used for managing the Master data as well. All CRUD( Create, Update, Read and Delete) operations are supported in MDM.

3. Business workflows for life cycle mgmt are also not supported in BI unlike in MDM.

4. MDM is true master data management tool which also supports rich product catalogs, content management PDFs and docs which is not supported in BI. BI is mostly used for storing of huge dataset using special schema structures( star, snow flake)

SOme of the use cases for MDM BI integration are-

1. Reporting based on Master data. Data Quality indices.

2. KPI related to SLAs based on Master data

3. Archiving master data

More more information and further learning you can refer to the wiki space dedicated on this topic.

http://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/SAPMDM/Connectivity-BI-MDM+Integration

Hope this helps-Ravi

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So in theory you could also use your BI environment as your MDM solution for storing and reading data and use a standalone BPM solution to manage who can create, update and delete master data and create audit reports against it accordingly.

If not can you clarify what advantage an MDM solution provides over BPM?

Also from the thread below it seems BPM is better suited to handle cross application workflow scenario's as MDM/PIM solutions often focus on one type of master data (e.g. customer, vendor, product) only.

https://answers.sap.com/questions/6429309/mdm-wf%27s-vs-bpm-and-caf-gp.html

former_member182007
Active Contributor
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Bala

below thread can put more insights on the same

Deep