Marketing teams, finance, HR, administration, and nearly every other department in an organization create their own data to do their work. The inability to harness these multiple data sources, along with organizational structures, are the most common barriers to a company’s productivity.
Data is often stored in separate locations and sometimes not shared with other groups. These pockets of data are called data silos.
Data silos are often a problem for businesses as they create hurdles to information sharing and collaboration across departments. It also creates inconsistencies in the quality of their data, making it difficult for leaders to have a reliable understanding of performance across departments. This lack of data accessibility impacts business productivity and finances while leading to missed opportunities due to the lack of trust in data and data governance.
An easy example:
The customer service department updates a customer’s contact details. At this point, it may look like this update will not affect the sales or the marketing department. However, when the marketing team runs a communication campaign, customers might not receive the required communication, or the finance team will have inaccurate details, making it challenging to create an invoice for this customer.
In short, data silos hurt organizations in ways that can be prevented when data is accessible and easily understood across the organization.
Eliminating data silos empowers companies to make decisions based on data.
How to break data silos
1. Identify how silos are affecting your organization’s performance
2. Understand the benefits of sharing data
3. Develop a strategy to centralize and store your data
4. Centralize your data into one single source of truth
5. Find a modern data management system that fits your organization’s unique needs and challenges
6. Automate the process of moving data from various sources into a single repository
7. Institute a data management program and develop a data governance strategy
8. But most importantly, swift your company’s culture by encouraging your departments to communicate and collaborate
Is your company facing data silos?
How are these silos affecting you to make informed decisions?
What steps are you taking to eliminate these silos?