Connect The Unconnectable: Prevent Data Silos for Business Success

The volume of data in the world was predicted by International Data Group to reach 59 zettabytes this year, and one big problem with the explosion of data created, captured, copied, and consumed in the world is data silos. Fortunately, there are ways to prevent data silos from slowing your business success.

Need a better idea of IDG’s predicted 59 zettabytes? That's equivalent to filling a one-terabyte hard drive, every day, for about 161 million years. The rapid growth of data is not slowing either. Next year, the amount of data is expected to reach 74 zettabytes, and by 2023, this year’s number will have doubled to 118 zettabytes.

Data is a business driver today. Different departments are making decisions based on the data they collect. But that’s the very problem: “different departments.” When the team, business unit, or department keeps its data internally it creates silos.

Data Silos: What they are

According to HubSpot: “A data silo is a group of raw data, which is accessible by one department but completely isolated from the rest of the company. This results in a severe lack of transparency, efficiency, and trust within the organization.”

When it comes to decision-making, data is what you want to rely on. We live in a data-driven world. It’s impossible for organizations to reach conclusions without the use of accurate data. This is because it’s no longer enough to make decisions based on what we think is right. To be competitive, everything must be grounded in facts and backed up by numbers to support the choices we make.

Whether your have information from customers, suppliers, partners, staff or anything else that involves your business, the data will appear in different shapes and sizes, which makes it very difficult to manage.

Common issues with data include duplicate data entries, outdated information, human error, and of course, the unwanted data silos.

Data silos are a big blocker for decision making, which ends up impeding the growth of your business. Knowing exactly what they are, identifying where they are, understanding how these silos affect work teams and what to do to eliminate them will make all the difference in the success of your business.

Regardless of the cause that originates data silos within your organization, it is clear that these aren’t good. What is so wrong with them?

1. They give an incomplete view of the business: When it comes to consolidating all the company’s data, there is usually no one assigned to gather all the data coming from salespeople, marketing, accounting, etc.

2. They create a less collaborative environment: Each team ends up working on projects independently and they only have access to their own data, so they will only work with that data. This creates a divided organization, with work teams that don’t collaborate with each other and don’t share a common vision of the company. Making decisions based on fragments of data will result in individual decisions rarely aligned towards a global business goal.

3. They lead to bad customer experience: When data is isolated, you can easily lose track of your customer's story with your company — and nothing is more frustrating for a customer than having to repeat their story over and over again to different people.

4. They slow the pace of your organization: Rather than automatically optimizing data between teams, people must first realize that they need data they don't have, to then contact the team that does have the data, and access to it manually. By the time you finally collect the data, it may no longer be valid. A total waste of time.

5. They waste storage space: If every single employee who needs the same data saves it to their company storage folder, that wastes precious storage space. As a result, your budget gets wasted by storing duplicate data unnecessarily. When data is streamlined onto one platform that every employee can access, much less space is consumed.

6. They threaten the accuracy of your data: Data is one of the most valuable assets of your business, but when that data is outdated, incomplete or missing, the value you can get from it goes down significantly. When each team has access to its own set of data, the objectivity of the data will lean in favor of the team with the most data. Pieces of fragmented information are difficult to assemble and there will be contradictory data when you try to verify information coming from different sources.

Problems with data silos

Each department has its own objectives, so it collects and stores data for its own purposes and it does this using different tools. One area of a hospital might use spreadsheets, another accounting software, and yet another has an online patient management platform. Each deals with data differently.

Unfortunately, it’s still very common for companies to use a business tool that is isolated from the rest of the technological ecosystem to collect data. Here are the most popular issues associated with data silos:

• Overlapping but inconsistent data is collected separately

• Gleaning actionable insights is challenging

• Barriers to a holistic view of opportunities or threats are created

• Resources are wasted learning from data analyzed through a narrow lens

Think about it from the perspective of higher education. One campus has admissions, retention, health and wellness, student life, academics, and more; and students interact with any number of those. But if these groups don’t share information, an at-risk student could slip through the cracks. In business, data silos put innovation and growth opportunities at risk.

The solution for getting rid of data silos: Technology

Because data is constantly changing, no matter how often you import/export CSV files, the information will never be fully up-to-date. It would take dozens of manual import/export operations each month, which would take a huge amount of time and heighten the risk of manual data entry errors.

Luckily, there are better options to prevent and solve data silos. So, how does technology break down the silos within organizations? Here are five strategies that can help.

#1 Create a more collaborative company culture

That doesn’t sound like an IT thing, but many technologies support communication across an organization, and communicating the benefits of sharing data isn’t going to work on its own. You need to give your people the tools to exchange data and discuss it. Microsoft Teams, for example, allows departments to share, comment, and edit spreadsheets in real-time, all while working in a shared-screen video conference call.

#2 Take the time to clean your data

No, we don’t mean with soap (bad idea), but taking the time to go through your business data prior to integration can help with accuracy. Don't waste valuable resources integrating and then storing out-of-date data. Take the time to ensure you are centralizing only data that still has value. It can seem very daunting to go through what may be years and years of outdated, isolated data. However, in order to create a data management system that is actually usable, you want to ensure that all the data in it is current and accurate. So, have your company slowly work through all the data stored and weed out anything unnecessary. This can double as a team-building activity — it's a win-win.

#3 Use integration software

All your data resides in different software today. Integrating those systems correctly is the most effective way to avoid data silos. Using integration software, you can sync data across the various enterprise solutions. This helps give you a complete picture of company data. What’s more, cloud-based integration platforms can also automatically update data to ensure higher quality.

#4 Create a centralized data home

Creating a central home for data supports greater accuracy and reduced human effort. Data from different sources is homogenized and consolidated in a cloud data platform. Cloud-based technology allows people to add and update data from the office, at home, or on the road. The cloud is also easily managed and can cut ongoing operational costs.

#5 Search for applications with native integration

As you replace legacy systems, prioritize applications that have native integration, as this can save your IT team effort. For example, avoid scripting integration between accounting software and an e-commerce platform.

Conclusion

When you decide to break down data silos and have your different databases talking to each other, you’ll see the benefits immediately.

Preventing data silos gives you access to enterprise-wide insights. A holistic view makes discovery of new opportunities and operational efficiencies more likely. Cost savings could follow, too! For one thing, you can avoid data redundancy and free up more storage.

Find out what technology is available to integrate your data silos. A managed service provider can review your objectives and IT inventory. Contact us today at 305 400 0992.