The importance of master data management

Data has become the present and future, not only of private organizations, but also of the different public administrations. This is why the benefit derived from data sharing between the different administrations is evident. However, it is not uncommon to find that each one of them maintains its own lists and, therefore, inconsistencies inevitably arise. This is why Master Data Management comes in.

What are master data?

Master data are those data that provide a context to transactional data, giving them a functional description and thus converting them into knowledge. For example, if we talk about 37 million, we have a transactional data that provide us with anything by itself. However, if we say that it is the number of people vaccinated and, in addition, we land it in the context of Spain, we can know that almost 80% of the Spanish population is vaccinated, and in this way, we convert raw data into knowledge.

Its main objective is to manage data sharing by reducing the risks associated with data redundancy and thus ensuring data quality.

How does it affect the public sector?

When we talk about data associated with public bodies, especially those made available to citizens and other administrations through open data portals, the need for standardization, i.e. the creation of a single, reliable view of data on citizens, programs, departments, suppliers, employees... becomes more evident.

In this context, one of the missions to be addressed within the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan announced by the Government of Spain for the economic recovery after the pandemic, is the dynamization of data sharing throughout the productive sectors of the economy and society, making data a strategic pillar for the economy. With this objective in mind, the Data Office has been created, located in the State Secretariat for Digitalization and AI, under the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation.

To achieve this goal, open portals for the reuse of public information, such as datos.gob.es, will play a key role. But first, we must ensure that the master data made available has the necessary quality.

Why is it necessary to manage master data?

With the advance of the digital era, data has occupied a fundamental place in society, whose presence is exponential over time. Nowadays, there are countless tools that allow a correct management of them. However, this transformation is being progressive over time. Years ago, public administrations began to compile the data they used in specific systems based on the needs of each of them. With the time, this has meant that the data currently handled comes from different sources and, on occasions, this information is apparently similar. In other words, we can find different sources with the same information on citizens, services, etc., which, when compared with each other, offer ambiguities and data consistency problems. Moreover, this is a problem that does not necessarily arise when comparing different administrations, but also occurs within the same administration for different reasons, such as uncontrolled data migrations between systems, different data sources (surveys, manual registration, registration in a portal, etc.), etc.

In short, we lose confidence in what the data tell us and the direct consequence of this is the loss of value of our information.

In addition, this type of casuistry can generate risks of unmanageable magnitude. It is a great opportunity to carry out fraudulent actions, it can cause unnecessary waste and, therefore, an increase in costs, data leaks, reputational losses, difficulties in complying with regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation, etc.

How to implement a master data management tool?

To achieve the ultimate goal of data sharing, we must first have a single, reliable view of the data, especially the most critical or priority data, to ensure not only the integrity and consistency of the data, but also the quality and accuracy, by being able to create business rules at a single point of truth.

This process can often be carried out through the following stages:

:

• Data model management, by means of documentation that allows locating the different origins for the same information domain.
• Data acquisition from different sources for centralization of all possible values.
• Validation, standardization and enrichment of data for the cleaning of the master based on the defined quality rules.
• Entity resolution in order to determine whether two object references refer to the same object or to two different objects. This is a decision-making stage, generating the process of matching and merging records that allows the construction of the master.
• Custody of the master and maintenance, as well as sharing with third parties.

In short, starting from the various sources of information, a single record or Golden Record is established on which to apply the rules that enable secure sharing.

In this way, public administrations can make information available to third parties, guaranteeing its quality, as well as take advantage of that of other public bodies, reducing efforts and having agile access to knowledge.

Example: energy efficiency certification

This management acquires greater relevance in public registries, especially in those linked to the General State Administration managed by various administrations, such as, for example, the energy efficiency certification registries.

This is a document that provides objective information on the energy characteristics of buildings, based on an evaluation of various parameters, such as energy consumed or CO2 emissions generated.

However, although the requirements for processing were issued in 2002 by the European Parliament, those responsible for granting energy efficiency labels are the Autonomous Communities, and for this reason, there are disparities depending on the territory for various reasons.

In this case, generating a master that unifies all these data at national level would be very useful, both for the citizens as a whole, as well as for each autonomous region in particular. For this reason, a procedure for the certification of the energy efficiency of buildings has already been launched for 2021.

Asimismo, podrían normalizarse otros datos públicos de la sociedad, estableciendo un único punto de referencia que interconecte los datos de una misma entidad y fomente la compartición de datos a través de ese único punto.

Likewise, other public data of society could be standardized, establishing a single point of reference that interconnects the data of the same entity and promotes data sharing through this single point.

Other areas of potential application can be found in the different ministries, such as tourism or health, adopting all the benefits of centralized management and then adapting it to the view that best suits the requirements or needs of each agency.

In fact, the Government of Spain has already promoted the creation of a national GAIA-X hub to deploy the data economy and bet on the leadership of data spaces, especially in strategic sectors such as tourism and health.

Conclusions

Data sharing in the public sector is a growing trend that is expected to play a key role in the coming years. Proof of this is the effort being made by the Administration, though, among others, the creation of the Data Office and the implementation of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan.

Therefore, each agency must manage its master data in such a way as to eliminate ambiguities in them. In this way, it will be possible to consolidate data sharing between the different public administrations that will allow actions focused on improving services to citizens, better understanding the needs of society.

Content prepared by Juan Mañes, expert in Data Governance.

The contents and views expressed in this publication are the sole responsibility of the author.