Information Technology managers in medical device companies are facing a dilemma given the current economic climate - despite budget cuts, companies do not expect reductions in the service levels provided by IT to the business. Under such circumstances, how do you maintain or improve service levels, and continue to run the business efficiently? Smart IT decision-makers in these companies are seeking out technology investments that can help to accelerate cost reductions and at the same time streamline business processes.

Master Data Management (MDM) is exactly this kind of investment. MDM ensures that critical enterprise data such as physicians, hospitals, researchers, products, and trials data is validated as correct, consistent, and complete when it is circulated for consumption by internal or external business processes, applications, or users. A recent Gartner report on 2009 Enterprise Software Spending mentions that "the business case for many application and infrastructure initiatives are now aligning to cost reduction and risk management," and that MDM is key to transforming business processes to streamline them further in current market conditions.

But not all MDM technologies can provide these cost benefits. Only an integrated, model-driven, and flexible MDM platform with easy configurability can provide rapid time-to-value and lower total cost of ownership. Consider the following seven ways a flexible MDM platform can lower costs.