Enjoy Picture Perfect Reference Data!

Enjoy Picture Perfect Reference Data!

Last year during my trip to Goa I witnessed people from almost all the corners of the world enjoying natural beauty at its best. Americans, Europeans, Russians, Asia Pac Natives, Mid East people, people from a little known corners of the world, and whoever was there, was watching the scenic beauty and feeling satisfied. The scenic beauty was something which all could see, like, and use to satisfy the aesthetic taste for nature. While I was returning home from Goa, a thought struck my mind that the reference data should also provide such a perfect picture to the user so that every user could see whatever beauty he/she wants to see and could utilize the reference data in the way he/she wants to use.

The next thought was of course a question that how the proposed picture perfect reference data scheme can clear the mercy less cycle of UAT and how it can benefit the people who are not actual users but may become users in the immediate future?

To create picture perfect beauty : To get the maximum benefit from the reference data,the scope of reference data should be defined prudently by the company/business which wants to use the reference data. The firm which wants to get it’s reference data managed should think about the broader picture and should get the maximum required attributes researched and validated.

The reference data which is being validated for say an investment management arm of a firm could prove beneficial to any other department (for instance insurance division) but up to a limited extent. However when the reference data validation/enrichment scope is defined, if the top level of organization thinks and gets all the homogeneous attributes which will be used by investment managers and Insurance wing people, included in the scope the firm can reap the benefit by paying only once for reference data of two wings. Similarly, getting counter party reference data researched along with securities data could lead to multiple benefits for the organization (or its various departments).

Sometimes if the firm gets the homogeneous attributes of just 3-4 major verticals validated, the reference data could be used by almost every wing including minor wings, because some of the attributes will always be common for every wing. As a result of such exercise the database will have all the values and whatever is required by a particular department could be brought on the screen via pre planned queries.

To let people from any corner of the world enjoy the prefect beauty : Now comes another important aspect. In case we want the employees, who are sitting in say Poland or Russia or Japan or in any corner of the world, to utilize the reference data to the fullest extent, we should let the data speak, the language, which those guys understand. Prudent usage of Anglicization, Translation and Transliteration should be done. For instance if we want to give comfort level to some Italian expert , we should provide him data ‘Milano’ however the User Interface must be intelligent enough to convert it into Milan in case user selects English version. And for this to happen, all the value conversion rules should be decided well in advance and the company which is engaged to do all this work(if outsourced) should have a perfect blend of technology and subject matter expertise.

Sometimes if we present a mere translation, it may change the meaning hence effective usage of transliteration should also be done. When we are dealing with pricing aspect of reference data, of course the information should ideally be provided in the currency of the user.

What else ? : Apart from the above rely upon some master strokes (for instance special knowledge about regulatory requirements , formatting rules as per geography, QA, blend of Corporate actions etc) from the subject matter experts and yes!… the perfect picture is ready.

Enjoy!!
Manoj Mendiratta
Project Head Production – (FA Wing) , Ebusinessware
http://www.ebusinessware.com/, http://creditdimensions.com/