Four phases.
Proven outcomes.
A structured delivery methodology built specifically for enterprise Reltio MDM — one that front-loads risk reduction, maintains business stakeholder engagement throughout, and produces a platform your team can own and operate confidently.
Discover
We invest heavily in understanding before recommending anything. Discovery isn't a box to check — it's the foundation that determines whether the implementation succeeds.
The most common reason MDM implementations fail isn't technical — it's that they solve the wrong problem. We spend more time in discovery than most firms because we've seen what happens when that investment is skipped.
- —Data domain inventory and source system mapping
- —Stakeholder interviews with data owners, IT, and business leads
- —Current state MDM maturity assessment against industry benchmarks
- —Data quality baseline measurement across priority domains
- —Integration landscape review and technical architecture assessment
- —Business case development and MDM strategy definition
- —Implementation roadmap with phased delivery plan
- MDM strategy and business case document
- Source system inventory and data lineage map
- Data domain prioritization framework
- Phased implementation roadmap with effort estimates
Design
With a precise picture of your data landscape, we design the complete Reltio solution — every configuration decision made against real requirements, not assumptions.
Design decisions made on paper are 10x cheaper to change than decisions made in a configured environment. We front-load design investment because it eliminates the most expensive rework.
- —Reltio data model design and domain configuration specification
- —Match rule design with algorithm selection and threshold definition
- —Survivorship rule specification by attribute, source, and recency
- —Integration architecture design with connector and transformation patterns
- —Data governance operating model and stewardship process design
- —Data quality rule library specification
- —Workflow and task configuration design for stewardship operations
- Reltio data model and domain specification
- Match and survivorship rule design document
- Integration architecture and connector specification
- Data governance operating model and RACI
Build
Disciplined, test-driven configuration and integration build — with continuous validation against real production data samples throughout the build phase.
Build quality is where Reltio implementations diverge most sharply. Match rules that look correct in isolation often fail against production data edge cases. We test continuously throughout the build, not only at UAT.
- —Reltio environment setup, domain configuration, and security model
- —Match rule implementation and iterative calibration against production data
- —Survivorship rule implementation with data-driven threshold testing
- —Integration pipeline build with error handling and monitoring
- —Data quality rule implementation and rule library configuration
- —Workflow and stewardship task configuration
- —User acceptance testing support and defect resolution
- Fully configured Reltio production environment
- Calibrated and validated match and survivorship rules
- Production-ready integration pipelines with monitoring
- UAT completion and sign-off documentation
Operate
Go-live is the beginning, not the end. We provide structured hypercare, comprehensive training, and ongoing managed services to ensure the platform delivers sustained value.
Most MDM value is realized 6–18 months after go-live as the platform matures, processes stabilize, and the team builds confidence. Abandoning clients at go-live is the industry's most common failure mode.
- —Production cutover execution with real-time monitoring
- —Post-go-live hypercare with dedicated support escalation path
- —Data steward, administrator, and analyst training programs
- —Platform health monitoring dashboard setup and alerting configuration
- —Monthly performance and data quality reporting
- —Quarterly optimization reviews with tuning recommendations
- —Ongoing managed services under defined SLA framework
- Successful production go-live with data validation
- Trained and self-sufficient platform team
- Monitoring dashboards and alerting in production
- Managed services agreement with defined SLA tiers
Delivery principles
These principles aren't aspirational — they're operational. They describe specific decisions we make differently from most MDM consulting engagements, and why we believe those decisions produce better outcomes.
Data before technology
We spend more time understanding your data than configuring your platform. The best Reltio configuration is the one built for your data — not copied from a template. Configuration decisions made without data evidence are guesses dressed up as designs.
Business stakeholders first
MDM is a business initiative, not an IT project. We engage data owners, domain leads, and business stakeholders from the first discovery session — not as an afterthought at UAT. The people who know the data must be involved in decisions about how it's managed.
Configuration over customization
Reltio's native capabilities are extensive and continuously improving. We always prefer platform configuration over custom code. Custom code has maintenance costs that accumulate over time and create upgrade risk. Platform capabilities scale with Reltio's roadmap.
Test against real data
Every match rule and survivorship configuration we deliver has been tested against a representative sample of actual production data. We don't go to UAT with untested configuration. The gap between synthetic test data and production reality is where implementations break.
Document the reasoning
Every configuration decision is documented with its business rationale and the data evidence that supports it. When your team needs to understand why a survivorship rule works a certain way — or needs to modify it — the context is in the documentation, not lost with the consultant.
Build for self-sufficiency
We explicitly design against consultant dependency. By the end of every engagement, your team should understand the platform well enough to operate it, troubleshoot issues, and make configuration changes. Dependency on the consultant is an engagement failure mode we actively prevent.
Ready to start discovery?
The first step is always a conversation. Tell us where you are in your MDM journey and what challenges you're facing — we'll tell you honestly what we think the right path forward looks like.
Talk to an expert