What are corporate silos?

Corporate silo is an unhealthy mind-set within an organization that occurs when people refuse to share information and knowledge with each other – it’s a ‘you do your work and I’ll do mine’ concept. This silo mentality is not something new for organizations. It is a business term that has been around for years which many businesses are trying to get rid of.

What are the causes of corporate silos?

Corporate silos tend to occur so naturally that it becomes very difficult to even notice it at the first place. The common causes for this includes fear, power struggles, and organizational inefficiency. Larger organizations are more prone to corporate silos due to the large number of people within the organization as compared to smaller ones, without implying that the latter do not face the same problem. With an increasing number of people, the communication gap becomes wider and wider, making it harder to communicate as everyone stays within a functional group, carrying out specific functions.

But why are they so bad?

Here’s a breakdown of the negative impacts of a siloed mentality on your organization, both internally and externally.

• Higher work inefficiency
• Work redundancy
• Low employee morale
• Lack of trust
• Poor customer experience

The resistance to share information never benefits anyone. It ruins trust, hinders growth and lowers productivity. Without seamless communication and information, it is very difficult for organization to make informed decisions and act fast to take on opportunities that arise. It also results in higher work inefficiencies which affects your customer experience quality. Customers can sense if your organization is facing communication barriers.

Take for example, different people from your sales, marketing and support team are handling the same customer but there are zero communication between them. Your customers will be the one suffering the need to repeat the same information multiple times which will hugely affect your company image.

Your time will also be wasted to do tasks that are redundant, hampering you from accomplishing more value adding tasks. As your teams become more and more isolated to their own functional department, the employee morale also experience a downfall.

Corporate silo is found to be one of the greatest obstacle in meeting business objectives. The only way to move forward is to break down the barriers and promote enough transparency throughout the organization, and sometimes the change needs to come from within. A sound CRM system will act as a collaborative platform for your team to easily share information, allowing a consistent customer experience quality.

Discover how to drive out corporate silos and deliver greater customer experience with the help of a comprehensive CRM system from JustCloud. Contact us today.