Top tips: Dismantling data silos in your organization
Top Tips is a weekly column where we highlight what’s trending in the tech world and list practical ways to explore these trends. This week, we're going over how you can eliminate data silos in your organization to enable smoother data flows.
The free flow of data is one of the clearest signs of organizational health. When data is locked away—isolated in disparate systems that don’t communicate with each other—you’re dealing with a data silo.
Siloed data is difficult to access, easily duplicated, and lacks the context needed for informed decision-making. It creates confusion, slows operations, and poses risks to governance and compliance.
Data silos can arise due to a variety of reasons, from the use of non-integrated software and information systems to a lack of communication between departments. For example, if your organization's sales and marketing teams are using two separate CRM platforms, you've created two data silos. This can greatly complicate collaboration between both teams while also affecting the quality of personalized marketing campaigns and sales communication.
As you can see, data silos are a major barrier to effective collaboration and communication in a corporate environment. Here are three ways you can break down data silos in your organization.
1. Foster a collaborative culture
One major contributing factor to the existence of data silos is a lack of communication between the teams and departments in your organization. Such communication gaps are indicative of a flawed company culture. If this is the case in your organization, you've got a lot more to worry about than just data silos.
A healthy culture is one that promotes cross-functional and inter-departmental collaboration—where information flows freely throughout your entire organization. Fostering an organization-wide collaborative culture can play a major role in opening up communication channels, enabling the smooth and seamless flow of data. Let's circle back to the example of the marketing and sales teams in an organization. Encouraging both teams to communicate and collaborate freely can greatly improve the lead nurturing process.
2. Centralize your data
Another way to break down data silos is to bring corporate data together into a centralized repository that is accessible company-wide. Of course, not all data is supposed to be accessible to everyone. This repository may also contain more sensitive kinds of data that are only meant to be viewed by a select few in the organization (known as "privileged users"). This is where strict role-based access controls come in. Implement these controls on individual files or entire sub-folders within the repository to ensure that only authorized accounts with the required privileges can access such sensitive data.
3. Use an IPaaS platform
Integration Platform as a Service (IPaaS) is a cloud-based model for integrating various applications used by an organization. IPaaS platforms like Zoho Flow are designed for simplicity, taking the hassle out of connecting your tools.
By integrating the various applications and tools in your organization's tech stack using an effective IPaaS platform, you can achieve seamless workflow orchestration, allowing data to flow smoothly between these tools. For example, you could create an integration where entries made to a lead collection form are automatically saved to the responsible sales manager's CRM portal.
Bring synergy to your organization through smooth data flows
The existence of data silos is a clear sign that you are not maximizing the data at your disposal. These barriers to the free flow of data within your organization prevent you from getting the most out of your data, leading to wastage.
Minimizing data wastage by breaking down silos is the first step toward data maturity. It won’t happen overnight—but by opening communication channels and integrating your systems, you’ll ensure your data reaches the people who need it, when they need it.