This paper presents an insight into the emerging concept of Master Data Management (MDM) and highlights issues that both academics and business managers should consider to better understand the meaning of this ‘hot topic’. This critical reflection paper is forward looking and attempts to make sense of the MDM concept and highlight the issues associated with implementation. We argue that both the Data Warehousing and ERP concepts are the forerunners to the emergence of MDM. We argue that MDM is effectively Data Warehousing branded with ERP market rhetoric and contains an added repository of ‘master data’. We see MDM as another attempt at data integration due to the failure of previous Data Warehousing, ERP and ERPII/BI initiatives. Finally, we argue that more research should be conducted to fully appreciate the true meaning of the concept of MDM and MDM implementation.