Managed chaos - special report: data management

DATA MANAGEMENT (DM) has long been the ugly sister in enterprise infrastructure. Perhaps the term is simply not as grandiose to the ear as `enterprise resource planning', customer relationship management or product lifecycle management (PLM). DM is often just seen as a subset of PLM. Indeed, ERP, CRM and PLM all get three letters: they are `proper' TLAs. DM just has two. And it has also been associated with just one sector - manufacturing - which has contributed to its ghetto image.