How to Troubleshoot Apps for the Modern Connected Worker
Taming the Raving Rabbids: The Ubisoft MDM Journey
1. Taming the Raving Rabbids:
The Ubisoft MDM Journey
Gartner Master Data Management Summit, May 6, 2011
Les Fondy, Vice President Information Technology, Ubisoft
2. About Ubisoft
Units sold life to date
Assassin’s Creed – 28M
Tom Clancy Rainbow 6 – 23M
Petz – 23M
Tom Clancy Splinter Cell – 22M
Prince of Persia – 17M
Driver – 16M
Just Dance – 12M
Rayman Raving Rabbids – 10M
The Settlers – 8M
Brothers in Arms – 7M
Far Cry – 7M
Anno – 6M
Shaun White Snowboarding – 4M
Coach – 4M
Red Steele – 2M
Tom Clancy H.A.W.X – 2M
Online & FB…
Since 1986
2nd largest in-house
development staff in the world
24 studios in 17 countries
Subsidiaries in 26 countries
Distribution in 55 countries
> 6,400 collaborators
worldwide
> 5,350 dedicated to
production
Sales FY 9-10 871M€
Ranked #3 Independent
publisher in Europe
Ranked #3 Independent
publisher in the US
4. An old cowboy said…
“Y’all can lead horse to
water, but beforin you do.
Remember what a wet
horse smells like.”
Because MDM sure ain’t
easy!
5. Distributed Organization
Production Distribution Legal
2 zones: NCSA and
EMEA for Ubisoft
games and 3rd
party products
Manages external
IP and royalties
Key issues:
Business teams in silos, multiple geographies, and
multiple languages
Each function managed its own master data
No single view and little formal governance
25 production
studios worldwide
And, that’s
not the way
we do it
here.
6. Core Master Data Hierarchies
Project Product Contracts
Description of projects,
owned by production
Unique ID
Description (short
and long)
Linked to budget
Type
Status
All Product
dimensions based
on complex data
models for:
Franchise
Brand
Family
SKU
Link to Project
Contracts
description with
sales and legal
attributes:
Type
Licensor
Legal
Territories
Link to Royalties
Link to Product
10. Basic Business Objectives
Production Distribution Legal
Improve royalties
reporting
Global
Establish communication and collaboration between functions
Establish global governance for all business domains and all countries
Share common view/definition of core master data
Establish and streamline Master Data integration with existing IT applications
Better project
management
Improve game
profitability
Improve sales
reporting on all
product dimension
12. Centralized Hub
ERP
NCSA
MDM
ERP
EMEA
ERP
Studios
DAM
Time
reporting
Our Business Users required Proactive Data Governance capabilities
to enable centralized authoring / sharing / collaboration / change management
MDM is the main point of entry for Projects / Products / Contracts
Master Data is synchronized with applications
(some local updates are consolidated back to MDM)
…
13. Key Requirements for Business Users
#1 – “Make it simple.”
MDM is a way of work life for business users to create,
view, update and approve master data
Used for complex authoring / hierarchy management
Most users are self trained (too many users, territories)
They appreciate the web-based architecture and interface
Embedded workflow enables both stewardship and collaboration
14. Key Requirements for Business Users
#2 – “User friendly [No IT required.]
Model-driven functionality”
MDM must make creation and collaboration of complex
data models and rules
Enable and track the full product lifecycle
Create complex attributes and hierarchies
Invisible validation / quality rules
15. Key Requirements for Business Users
#3 – “Agile like implementation method”
MDM is a business process journey. Implementation is a
consistently coordinated process of short cycle deliveries
with the capabilty to turn on a dime.
Rapid prototyping results: What you model is the result.
Efficient global workshops along with ease of use delivered quick-
wins
Rapid end user adoption
16. Solution: EBX from Orchestra Networks
Standards-based Integration to Applications
One unified Web UI for:
Data Modeling
Validation / Quality rules
Authoring
Hierarchy Management
Version control
Role-based Security
EBX
19. Business Enhancements
Operational Capabilities, Efficiency & Time to Market
New attributes (HQ Category, Press and Retailer confidentiality…)
Management of multiple items (Compilations, Bundles…)
Management of accessories
Management of consumer products
Management of ratings
Auto object creation saves time (Projects/Budgets/IPC)
Improved Reporting
New Franchise level in the Product hierarchy
EMEA, NCSA views plus Studio and Group vision
Object linking provides significantly improved reporting ( Project – Product – Contract)
History of Installment Names
Easily enabled Business Objects universe creation
20. Business Enhancements
Finally able to implement Governance & Data Quality processes
Updated workflow (creation/update/validation/notification)
Enabled long needed data cleansing effort
Role based security enabled multiple profiles to allow more participants to take part in the
Master Data creation and update
The process created a new common nomenclature
Better IT integration
One central application manages core data with timely updates to key applications