SAP Master Data Governance Reviews

We use it for material master, customer master, and things around vendor master.

The user experience can be improved.

I've been working with this solution for the last 12 months.

It is a PaaS solution with cloud deployment.

The stability is quite good.

The scalability is very good.

The technical support is very good; they are very helpful.

The SAP MDG setup is quite difficult. I would rate the initial setup at three out of five because it is complicated and very difficult.

The deployment took about 6 months.

Understand the functional part first before you implement MDG. I would give this solution a seven out of ten.

This product is helpful for streamlining the master data management process, improving the quality of the master data. That's the typical use case. I'm the senior manager in the company and a solutions architect - we provide this solution to our clients. 

I like everything about this product, primarily because I'm an SAP guy, and I've been working with their products for nearly 15 years so I'm naturally more inclined towards SAP. The company provides good documentation which is very helpful. 

One thing that could be improved is the documentation provided for the MDG extensions by Utopia. I'd also like to see increased maturity around reference data solutions. The solution already has some key master data domains but it would be helpful to have a few more that are not out of the box. 

I've been using this solution for several years. 

There are different modules in MDG, and the standard ones are stable. There are sometimes issues when new releases come out. 

From my perspective, the product is scalable. 

The technical support is okay but we sometimes struggle to get the responses in a timely manner. It's generally okay, given that it's an established platform. 

I'm not involved on the technical side, so I don't know whether the setup is complicated. 

In my role as a solutions architect, I don't get involved in the procurement side. Different clients have different commercial models for buying the license and I'm not privy to that information. 

I definitely recommend this solution and rate it eight out of 10. 

What was valuable in that it forced people in our organization to standardize records. Previously, the records were not standardized so if you had a record of something, an object or whatever, there was no agreement. The technology forced us to look at our business. When you're trying to implement a technology, you need to look at your business and standardize your business if you want such a tool to work. It forced us to do that.

The workflows have been a valuable aspect of the solution. 

The solution is great at standardizing all of our records.

It's a pretty simple application and it's meant to be simple. It's not meant to do a lot of things. Instead, it's meant to do one thing and one thing only. Right now, what they have is good. 

The workflow works well, however, there's not a lot of options in defining roles. There are roles that are very specific within the MDG and we had to adapt our process to the roles that are in the workflow. I'm talking about the workflow in the roles, not access rights or things of that nature (such as access or identity management). I'm talking about how the flow works in the different types of roles. It's not very flexible.

Overall, they just a little bit more flexibility in terms of assigning roles or adding new roles. We have a longer approval process, so we need to break it down into more roles than what is typically available and we need to hard-code it.

We've been using the solution for years.

The solution is stable. However, it depends. Just straight technology-wise, it's stable. 

It's not very scalable. 

We ran into all kinds of issues in trying to capture items. It ties into SAP. MDG is based on the fields and the data points or attributes that are collected. It's not the application that is not scalable. Rather, it's the data model of the application. MDG is based on the SAP application data model. However, due to the fact that the SAP application data model is not very scalable, MDG is not scalable.

I've never personally dealt with technical support. It's the IT team that usually handles any problems. The CVO office is not doing any type of IT support maintenance. We're more about the policy and directions on the data management overall. Therefore, I wouldn't be able to comment on the technical support of the solution.

That said, my understanding is that the relationship we have with technical support is good.

The application itself is not very complex to implement. It's rather straightforward. However, that said, to make the application work, you need to look at your business. You need to look at whatever data assets you want to govern and make sure they are standardized. Then you need to have agreements. It's all about data governance. If you don't have a strong data governance framework set up already around your data assets, the implementation of the application can get very complicated. It's not a technology issue. It's a business problem. 

If you don't know who makes the decision on what and who approves what, you will run into problems. To give you an example, if you have a material of some sort, such as a pencil, you need to ask: what are the data points or the data attributes associated with that pencil that makes it a standard record, and what would you want to govern, and which data attributes are you governing? Are you governing everything about it, or just a few attributes? All those decisions need to be made beforehand. If you don't have good data governance that tells you who has the authority to make that decision, that's where you get into negotiation and it becomes very long to implement that application.

It's not about the tool itself. Configuring an application is easy. It's rather about how do you integrate that application into your business and operations. That's where it gets tricky. Most of the time, people are not ready for that. That's the whole point of having any type of project led by IT rather than business. IT just focuses on the application and they don't focus on the business processes. That's why, sometimes, applications fail, because it was too focused on the technology and not enough on how that technology relates to the business.

I don't have any details in regards to the licensing costs related to the solution. IT tends to take care of licensing and procurement.

We're clients. We don't have a business relationship with eh client.

We've been implementing the solution for a number of years, as it's a National Defense project. The entire project is ongoing.

Due to the nature of the project, we don't have anything on the cloud.

Overall, I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.

Our primary use for the product is for master data management and the company IP.  

I think it is quite difficult to say which feature I like the most because it is just a company process management tool. We have to use it. It manages a perspective of what we do. The most valuable thing is what it does. 

What SAP needs to do for this product is to improve the user-friendliness of the dashboard to make sure they are going to have a more user-friendly product in the future. Another task for SAP is to accommodate China's local requirements because this product is still a global one. Sometimes what the module does will not fit so well for Chinese user requirements. It needs to be more global-aware.  

We have been using SAP Master Data Governance for about 10 years.  

Stability is built into the product.  

I do not think that there are any scalability issues with SAP. We have had no problems and expect to increase usage.  

Our company has global support from SAP. They are responsive and do what we need.  

The cost of the product is not ideal. It will be matched centrally by the global act for us. We have some help with the cost.  

I would recommend SAP MDG to others who are looking into implementing it. If a company is already using SAP, then there is no doubt that it is a good choice. MDG is the preferred choice for SAP users. If they do not use SAP, the choice will be based on the detailed requirements for the company — the business requirements — to pick the right product.  

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate SAP MDG as maybe a seven-of-ten.  

I work for a train company on the IT side of master data management. We are customers of Master Data Governance and I'm a functional consultant of master data. I implement the solution across our numerous locations.

The product is very useful in terms of building master data and in terms of our code. It is a very solid product and provides corrected data. This is a solid packet and a good tool. 

I'd like to see more flexibility which is currently lacking. They need to add a cloud option as well as multiple creations. We're looking for a better mass upload.

I've been using this product for three years. 

I believe the latest version is scalable and compatible. I don't have any hands-on experience as yet.

Technical support provides a good service for us. 

We also use Oracle solutions in the SharePoint portal. Oracle is not controlled the way SAP is. Controls and validations are limited.

If you work in a well-controlled environment, implementation is easy. 

Licensing costs are a little on the high side. 

I rate the solution seven out of 10. 

The solution is primarily used for workflows.

For example, in Turkey, some of our customers have different material quotes, material numbers, or material types. Everything is so confusing from the main company. It's hard to go over the old data. However, with MDG, they can see all the data in the system. It allows for an effective data workflow. There are workflows for all kinds of items, including materials, data, customer's financials, vendor details, ERPs, etc. 

The solution's GUI is very good. The entire product is very user-friendly and easy to navigate. Normal users, not SAP experts, are able to get around the solution without too much trouble. 

The reporting is quite good on the product.

We've found the solution to be quite flexible.

There's a workflow in MDG. What happens is, when you end it, the materials are created. However, in Data Quote Management, when for example, you make a project, to use later you can activate Data Quote Management, and set new rules. When you check it on the Data Quote Management screen, it shows charts and analytics. You define the rule, it shows you the materials that don't fit with your rule. It's actually good practice to improve your data. You can set the workflows however you want. The analytics are largely for CFO or CEO, and they can see all data within the charts.

The implementation could be easier.

The governance of master data is difficult, and consolidating the old data is really hard. MDG projects tend to last a minimum of six months, and this is largely due to the fact that there are too many rules. 

The biggest problem in MDG is that you have to make rules and you have to set your rules very strictly and you need to prepare your data for your rules. If you don't, your old data is kaput.

The marketing of the product outside of Europe should be better. While it might be well known in places like Germany or England, it doesn't have the same recognition in Turkey. Our first MDG project was only two or three years ago. It's pretty new to the scene.

The solution is lacking configuration in one system. For example, there's a lack of country definitions, country tax category definitions in MDG, and in all ERPs. When MM projects are done, they configure everything. 

For example, my customer only does business with European Union countries. They don't define European Union country's tax number categories, however, when they deal with Israel, they don't define it in the old ERP system. It's a problem. You need to have a conversation with all seven ERP consultants and tell them to redefine this tax number category. It could be better, maybe, or easier.

I have a year's experience when it comes to dealing with the solution.

The solution is quite stable. You need to ensure the rules you create are strict, however, the performance itself is good. If you are not strict with the rules, it's hard to fix things once that happens.

The solution can scale and is expanding. For example, in the first MDG version, it was very basic. However, in newer MDG versions, SAP gets some new business objects like Data Quote Management and analytics. They are continuing to build out the product.

Currently, we have around 2,000 users at this time.

We have technical support for our company. We can open tickets if we run into issues. Typically, it takes two to three days to resolve things. It's not too difficult to reach out to them. It's quite typical and they aren't extremely helpful.

For example, when we have a problem and we open a ticket to SAP, they tend to say, "You need to check this quote". You need to check it, yet they don't define the specific problems. They say, "Check here", "Check this", "Check this quote", and we check it and we try to find the problem. They could be more helpful in that sense.

It's important, at the outset, to be very strict about the rules you are setting, otherwise, you can lose data and it's hard to fix things.

In terms of deployment and maintenance, for a simple MDG project, it depends on what data a company want. For example, one project management person is for sure needed, as well as one senior manager, one senior consultant, two engineers, and one technical consultant for sure. This is the minimum you'll need for a team.

SAP tends to sell the customer the license, however, they make money on the amount of data. 

The problem is in Turkey, there are economic issues that affect SAP's sector in Turkey. For example, five years ago, one euro was three Turkish lira, now it's nine Turkish lira, so SAP, now costs triple the amount, actually.

SAP is aware of this, and they do try to offer discounts, however, I don't know how much as I'm not in the sales meetings. It's not an aspect of the business I worry about.

I'm an SAP consultant.

I would recommend the solution to other users. It's flexible and has a good GUI. It's useful for business processes.

Overall, I would rate the product at an eight out of ten. We've been mostly pleased with the results.

We're a consulting company in the area of procurement solutions, where product and supplier master data builds the base for any Spend Analytics, Strategy and any Automation Scenarios. Majority of our customers use SAP MDG especially for Supplier Master Data.

Our customers are integrating their central SAP MDG with procurement solutions for self-registration and supplier profiling including supplier qualification, supplier performance and development. The central SAP MDG is also used as master data hub to distribute Central Master Data and Supplier Master Data into the different back end systems like SAP ERPs and Non SAP ERPs and others.

A good solution for large enterprises. 

The price can be improved.

It follows the SAP standard rules and governance for master data operations and follows change and release management rules according to SAP standards for IT operations. It offers the full SAP administration and governance, and it's quite a stable and professional product.

SAP Master Data Governance is a scalable product.

Technical support depends on the size and type of company. Multiple support levels are available.

Installation is straightforward. I don't think there's a big difference between this and other products.

I would recommend SAP Master Data Governance to new customers, especially large companies. 

On a scale from one to ten, I would give SAP Master Data Governance an eight.

I found the business workflow engine embedded inside SAP Master Data Governance to be the most useful. It helped orchestrate master data CRUD operations across the enterprise cutting across departments.

SAP Master Data Governance helped the organisation prevent bad and unauthorised master data from entering the production database. It helped crystallise the data governance processes.

A wizard based configuration similar to S/4 HANA Activate would make it easier for business users to contribute.

Consolidation function based on HANA needs improvement

More than five years

There have been no issues with the deployment.

There have been no stability issues.

There have been no scalability issues.

I have found them to be very helpful.

It was very easy to set-up. The out of box configuration can be activated in a few weeks itself.

Informatica MDM

This product is suitable for a predominantly SAP landscape.