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Even worse, you may not know who made changes (or whether they had the authority to do so). Inconsistent Data: If you have information stored in several different locations, you won’t know what the “right” version is. They can also have larger harmful effects like: Silos do more than prevent people from collaborating. Even though each department has valid reasons for managing data the way they do, each method can still create silos.

Other departments, like marketing, might want to foster collaboration and access.ĭistinct departments often generate distinct practices, procedures, and cultures. Some departments, such as legal, may want to restrict access for security purposes.

CultureĪ company’s culture can also lead to data silos, as departments may create their own data processing standards. This creates another silo, and it can lead to duplicated and inconsistent data. They get higher quality data fed to them, while other departments are overlooked or receive lower quality data. Departments that have a bigger impact on the bottom line may be viewed as more important. Perceptions of relative importance exacerbate the silo problem. This silo mentality encourages the creation of information silos leading to an overall negative impact on company culture and performance. When teams don’t feel confident that their data will be properly and consistently managed, it can be difficult to foster data sharing within the organization. In some cases, if each department has its own culture and views on data sharing, there can be distrust between departments. Since each team is collecting the same email address from users, you now have three copies of that email address stored across the organization’s network. However, if they’re using different applications that don’t connect, you have a silo. For example, all three of those teams collect and use similar customer information, such as email addresses. Every team, whether it’s sales, marketing, or customer service, uses applications to help them get work done. TechnologyĮvery new technology brings with it a potential data silo. This makes it harder to identify them and subsequently break them down. Various workflows, policies, and procedures may inadvertently encourage them within certain operations.ĭata silos are rarely intentional. People and organizational structures can also cause silos. If left unchecked, these will grow with time. New applications that don’t integrate with your tech or analytics stack will generate silos. Technology, and the processes that surround it, can give rise to silos. The surge in data collection has only compounded this problem. Business leaders soon realized departments were duplicating work, recreating the same reports, and (worst of all) following no shared procedures. Silos would spring up by department.īut the rise of the Internet ushered in a new age of interconnectivity. Marketing would have distinct goals from sales, and would develop distinct procedures for processing data and leveraging insights.

Historically, business departments functioned independently of one another. As a result, data remains siloed off from other teams. Today, even if marketing and sales teams share or duplicate information, each department may have different policies and processes for managing information, depending on their unique needs and goals. In some cases, the teams may not have even realized that they were both collecting the same data from customers! In the days before the internet, silos typically arose when different departments didn’t share information with each other. When you can’t link the data from one system to the other, each is an individual “silo.” If your company is collecting and storing a lot of data in different locations, there’s a good chance you have a data silo. What Are Data Silos?ĭata silos, also called information silos, are pockets of information stored in different information systems or subsystems that don’t connect with one another. To effectively fight back against this problem, business leaders need to take a step back and reassess their current procedures and operations, company culture, and technology stack. This can make collaboration across departments difficult, leading to inconsistent data quality, a lack of communication and visibility, and higher costs over time (among other issues). In many cases, leaders aren’t even aware that they exist within their own business. Although organizations don’t set out to intentionally create data silos, they are likely to arise naturally over time.