How do you know what's the best move for your business? When it comes to decision-making, intuition is good, but data — all the qualitative and quantitative facts documented in business applications and spreadsheets — is what you want to rely on.

我们生活在一个数据驱动的世界。佛是不可能的r organizations to come to conclusions without the use of accurate data. This is because it's no longer enough make decisions based on what we believe to be correct. To stay competitive, everything must be rooted in fact and backed up by numbers to support the choices we make.

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Whether it's information about your customers, providers, partners, staff, and anyone or anything else involved in your business processes, data comes in different shapes and sizes, which makes it very difficult to manage.

Frequent数据问题include duplicate entries, outdated information, human mistakes, and of course, the unpopular data silos.

Data silos are a big blocker for decision making, which ends up getting in the way of your business growth. Knowing exactly what they are, how they affect your team, and how to solve them makes all the difference.

This usually happens because the data is collected by a business tool that is isolated from the rest of your技术生态系统.

Here are the two most common scenarios in organizations with data silo issues:

1. Issues with Technology

Data cannot easily pass between departments of organizations that don't have access to proper technology. Companies need to own high-quality applications that can handle quick transfers of information and cross-references. Also, some teams may be better trained in using the technology for data transfer than other teams, which could lead to problems in the latter being able to access the same information.

2. Growth in Organizations

Sometimes, when an organization grows too large, it becomes difficult for there to be an easy passing of data throughout the organization. There may be far too many departments, offices throughout the nation or world, or employees, that result in a feeling of isolation from the rest of the company. Also, when organizations become too large too fast, there may be structural issues. It may require several steps for data to be passed down the hierarchy.

此外,随着组织规模的增长,员工之间的竞争可能会增加。某些团队可能不想将数据发布给其他团队,如果他们想保持控制。

Why Are Data Silos Bad?

Whatever the cause may be for your organization, it's clear that data silos aren't good, but what is truly so wrong with them?

1. They give an incomplete view of the business.

C级高管已任务巩固公司的所有数据。bob全站app如果您是打电话的高管,您知道您的销售团队将谈论新客户,营销将分享潜在客户和流量的数量,并且会计团队可以为您提供费用和利润的报告。但是,什么将所有信息联系在一起?

试图用孤立的数据管理业务就像试图将拼图拼图放在盒子上没有图片的情况下。数据筒仓阻止您对业务有360度的视野。

2.他们创造了一个不太协作的环境。

Each team ends up working independently in the presence of data silos. They only have access to their own data, so that is the only data they work with. This creates a divided organization. Teams do not collaborate with each other on projects, which makes it near impossible for the company to share a common vision.

We've said that managers want to make decisions based on data. But if the leaders of each team can’t see the big picture and only have access to their own fragment of the data, their individual decisions will rarely be aligned towards global business goals.

在数据孤岛是常态的环境中,很难维持透明度和信任的文化。取而代之的是,您可能会在专注于自己的微观目标的球队之间建立竞争和竞争。

3.它们导致客户体验不良。

In most businesses, there are multiple customer touch points. These interactions happen through a variety of channels and during different stages ofthe buyer's journey. That means that you'll have members of several teams like support, billing, sales, or marketing interacting with the same customer or buyer.

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.他们减慢了您的组织的步伐。

It's a waste of time to have data silos. Rather than being able to automatically streamline data across teams, data is isolated within teams. This means teams have to wait until they realize they need data they don't have, find where the data lies within the organization, manually gain access to it, and then analyze it for their own purposes. By the time you collect the data, it may no longer be valid.

5.他们浪费了存储空间。

如果每个需要相同数据的员工都将其保存到其公司存储文件夹中,则浪费了宝贵的存储空间。bob全站app作为回报,这会将您的预算浪费在存储您既不需要也不想要的数据的数据上。如果将数据简化到该组织中所有员工都可以访问的一个平台上,则将消耗大量的空间。

6. They threaten the accuracy of your data.

Data is one of the most valuable assets of your business. Having several tools collecting information about your prospects, customers and partners increases your company's value. But when that data is outdated, incomplete or missing, the value that you could get from it goes down significantly.

As mentioned above, the longer the isolated data sits around, the more likely that it becomes outdated and, thus, inaccurate and unusable. In addition, every team may have access to their own set of the same data. This leads to objectivity in data that skews in favor of the team that owns them.

Working with data silos results in poor-quality data because these fragmented pieces of information are difficult to assemble. If your data is not integrated or in sync, you'll surely see conflicting data when you try to cross-check the information from different sources.

Solutions for Getting Rid of Data Silos

Since data silos happen when you have different databases isolated from one another, a lot of managers think it's simply about importing and exporting those databases. The problem is that data is not static. Phone numbers change, emails change, people leave companies and prospects become customers or even providers.

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.

1. Use integration software.

您的数据很可能位于不同软件片段中。bob电竞官方下载Integrating those systemscorrectly is the most effective way to avoid data silos. For the users of cloud-based applications, Integration Platforms as a Service (iPaaS) are an outstanding solution.

在最好的IPAA解决方案中,您会发现馅饼focused on two-way customer data sync,Zapier对于单向数据推动,mulesoftfor enterprise solutions.

集成软件解决了我们上面探bob电竞官方下载索的所有问题。您将拥有高质量的数据,可以为您提供完整的客户图片。此外,它可以确保您的数据自动更新,并帮助您的不同团队进入同一页面,从而获得更好的客户体验。

2. Choose an all-in-one solution to unify your data management.

All-in-one solutions can also be referred to as platforms. These are software providers that offer different products to cover several business processes. When your sales, marketing and customer support teams work with the same provider, it’s easier to avoid data silos.

使用平台是保持团队保持一致的好方法。当您使用的某些软件解决方案来自同一bob电竞官方下载品牌时,他们可能会使用相同的术语来讨论不同类型的数据,从而使团队之间的交流更加顺畅。这也使他们更容易在没有手动劳动或第三方工具的情况下共享客户和联系数据。

The most important step is to find the right platform for your company on which you can streamline all your data. That means no more loose Excel spreadsheets and random software shared only by individual teams. Consolidating all data onto one platform will make it easier to share that data between departments. You won't have to dig through your own private records upon request; everything will be accessible by everyone.

If you already use one of these platforms, you are on the right path. Just keep in mind that as your business grows, you might need to add more business applications to your software stack, and not all of them will come from the same software vendor. That’s when you can start looking for the best software integration solutions for your business.

3.搜索for applications with native integrations.

This one is tricky. For companies that develop business applications, creating in-app or native integrations between systems is complex at a technical level. Even withopen APIs, there's a lot of time and effort involved. Also, with so many applications out there, it's impossible to build a native integration for every tool you are using next to their app.

尽管如此,一些美联社plications detect popular use cases and create tailored solutions to connect their data with another app. Nowadays, it is common to see native integrations between CRM and marketing tools, accounting and billing software, e-commerce and billing apps, among others.

4. Create a more collaborative company culture.

对于公司的高管而言,建立一个包含公司文化的组织很重要。bob全站app在HubSpot,我们有一个多样性和包容性团队,该团队努力创造一种文化,无论他们在剑桥还是都柏林工作,还是实习生或C级高管。规划公司范围内的活bob全站app动,创建一个Culture Codelike ours, and, overall, welcoming all the traits that make each employee special can create a company that is more accepting of each other and collaborative — making it much easier for employees to want to share data with people outside of their teams.

5. Take the time to sort through outdated data.

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.

数据筒仓会影响您的团队,客户,数据价值和商业愿景,因此这是一个真正的头痛。幸运的是,有多种方法可以使用技术来预防它。

Integrating your different business applications is your best bet to avoid data silos. The solution you need might already be available inside the business applications you are using as native or in-app integrations. If not, there are iPaaS solutions waiting for you.

当您决定分解数据孤岛并让您的不同数据库相互交谈时,您会立即看到好处。没有什么比拥有您在组织中使用的所有应用程序丰富的高质量数据库更像了。

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Originally published May 27, 2020 8:59:01 AM, updated June 09 2021

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