Information Silos. It can be argued that information is the life-blood of any company and that business success depends on how efficiently those who need information can access it. In fact, much business theory and practice has been developed around the idea of “the data-driven business,” and for good reason.
Unfortunately for the invisible enterprise, information has a habit of getting lost in the system. It ends up on individuals’ laptops and network-attached storage, in filing cabinets, and on emails and voicemails. Each of these media become “silos” where information is inadvertently kept invisible to the rest of the company. Like a giant virtual haystack, this source of inefficiency can compound as a company scales, as more and more information builds.
The Unfortunate Result
The result is a loss of company IP (i.e., intellectual property), and diminished work-quality (due in part to the difficulty of finding the right version of a document, or the necessity of re-creating a document when the original can’t be found). Another consequence of information silos is a loss of security, as the permissions structure is reduced to shambles due to complexity and entropy.
Ultimately, the invisible enterprise cannot easily access its documents and data, cannot easily build on its existing work, and is inefficient in collaboration and creating new work-product. These "silos", if not remedied, can cripple a business.
Blue Margin helps companies centralize data, documents, and projects for easier collaboration and anywhere, any device access to your most important business tools. It's simpler than you may think, and the tools are more accessible and affordable than ever. Give us a call at (800) 865-6530 for a free cloud-savings assessment, or visit us online at Bluemargin.com.
