The most popular and comprehensive Open Source ECM platform
Let us know more
Data Management: Data Silos Never Vanish
Data silos have been the “scourge of enterprises” for years. The root of the problem are applications that are isolated and manage their own data without communicating with other applications. Silo-ed information, while often valuable and even vital, often goes unanalyzed and unshared.
Bryan Stibbard, vice president at Commvault, said that “CIOs around the world face a common problem: their data management silos are creating bottlenecks that result in missed opportunities and prevent organisations from achieving the full value of their data as a powerful, strategic asset.”
Greg Lowe, social edge consultant, identifies four types of data silos: regulatory, business unit/hierarchical, interest focused, and project focused. There are also social media silos, data warehousing silos, and business intelligence/analytics silos.
Henry Morris, a senior vice president with IDC, said that “ERP suites were designed to be a replacement for separate departmental applications.” In the 1990’s, ERP promoted the idea of a single database used that integrated applications could share, effectively doing away with data silos. ERP was widely adopted, at least by large companies, but data silos haven’t go away.
A number of factors have been at play, keeping data silos alive and well. ERP software is complex and expensive. Small and mid-sized companies just couldn’t afford it. Bigger companies took years to implement ERP, and often implemented not one, but multiple ERP suites. And now, business departments are beginning to use the cloud and software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions. The vision of a common database for all corporate data is as far away as ever.
