Why are Information Silos such a big deal?
Information silos can be a pain and cause a lot of strain on a business. Like to a leaky pipe, the longer your silos goes unmitigated, the more spread out they become, and the more difficult the problem becomes to fix.
Surely you understand this, you’ve probably noticed it before; someone on your team says they’re working on something, maybe a lead, that’s already being worked on, maybe already converted to a sale. Image that experience from the customer’s perspective; you just bought something from a company, and now you have a new sales person from the same company trying to sell you the same thing? I know I would hate that.
These types of problems are more common than you think, and can range from the lacking of necessary information, to a complete stone wall in communication, or maybe internal strife over the way decisions are made.
Let’s dive in and get to the bottom of these infamous Information Silos.
Understanding the Basics of Information Silos
What is an information silo?
Information Silos occur when information is stuck in one place, and someone cannot access the information that is pertinent to their work. Due to these factors, essential information and knowledge bases within a company have limited access when that info is relevant to people across the business.
What causes information silos?
With the rise of digital business tools and the division of work, teams using different software within the same company often lack connectivity and direct routes of communication. Lack of communication can lead you to have entire repositories of information that an entire department could be completely unaware of.
What are the results of information silos?
Information silos more than anything cause lag in business. It takes longer to get answers to questions, find that pertinent information, and both time and resources get wasted.
Are all information silos bad?
There are times where having “silos” of information is logical. It does make sense to store specific things in specific places, like gating sensitive or secure work. Think, law firms, accounting firms, or anything that’s heavily regulated or contains sensitive details you wouldn’t want easily accessible to just anyone. But aside from things sensitive in nature, there’s not many “silos” in business that should be acceptable.
Common departmental issues experienced in business
Sales →
Sales teams lacking centralized location for all sales activities to be documented and recorded. You eventually end up with multiple people trying to sell to the same company, creating a bad experience for the customer.
Marketing →
Marketing teams not receiving feedback from sales teams or not getting enough notice from development teams when updates to products or services are coming.
CRM →
CRMs can be messy with out dated, wrong, or duplicate data. Without an organized database customer relationships are harder to manage and scaling a business is impossible.
Support →
Often times support specialist create resources or guides for customers, but don’t share them amongst their teams, doubling up on work that could be stored for the entire team to use.
Development →
Product dev teams often do get insight on the products success and often time customer feedback is not streamlined to the dev’s even though need to hear that kind of feedback.
Solving the problem of siloed information.
Once you know what your silos are and where they’re located it’s time to think about mending them. There’s dozens of options for integrating your business tools, unifying processes, and aligning departments across your company.
Do some research on Google about your specific industry, niche, and types of silos you’re encountering. There are a lot of resources online to help resolve this types of business problems.
If you want some more direct assistance, considering working with a monday.com channel partner. You can book a free workflow exploration with us and we can dive into your process and discuss ways to improve and reduce the silos in your business!
