With host Darrell Alfonso
Enterprise organizations have had a big problem for years: Their many departments exist in silos. Oftentimes, there are silos within individual departments themselves. When you’re dealing with a large number of people required to run an enterprise company, keeping everyone connected and communicating can be difficult.
For a long time, a lot of enterprise businesses didn’t try to do much to break down those silos. Today, however, we finally have access to something that can help bridge the gap between business departments: data orchestration.
Data makes it easier for individual departments to better measure the goals and insights they need; it also makes it easier for them to share that information across all departments. Marketing can share metrics with sales that enable sales reps to do their jobs more successfully. Various departments can share data with finance that allows them to allocate the budget more effectively. Customer service can share data with the product development team that helps them make a better product.
Data-sharing can go in all directions. Most departments have data that other departments can benefit from. Now you just need to determine who can benefit from what information, and develop a process for getting that data to everyone in the company that needs it.
Data shows us what’s working and what’s not. Having good data therefore makes it possible to create goals for the company as well as for individual departments that are realistic, helpful, and specific.
When the company’s top-level goals align with the specific departmental goals, it puts everyone on the same page. With access to accurate clear data, departments have the power to more clearly see which of their activities are most successful in contributing to the shared top-level goals everyone is responsible for. More importantly, they can better tell when something they’re doing that looks good isn’t actually supporting the success of other departments and change their approach accordingly.
Recent marketing research shows clearly that establishing integration between different departments pays off. The businesses that get the best results are nearly eight times more likely to be integrating their message across the sales, marketing, and customer service departments. Those same businesses are also 17 times more likely to be good at collaborating with other teams.
When departments work together, customers get a more consistent experience throughout the entire buyer’s journey. Departments ensure the work they’re doing also works to support the work that other departments do, and not detracting from it. Predictably, it ends up meaning increased profits and a decrease in wasted company money.
One place to start is by having a shared platform that allows for custom dashboards that provide each user and team the specific data they need in an easy-to-understand visual format. Beyond that, you should implement regular meetings or check-in times for departments to actually talk to each other and learn what their colleagues are doing and how to align their goals.
Encourage ongoing communication between different teams. Technology makes that part, whether you’re using an enterprise collaboration tool or something more consumer grade.
Between data orchestration and technologies that simplify collaboration, there’s no excuse anymore for everyone to work in their own bubbles. It’s within your reach to get the ball rolling on toppling those silos, and your business results will be better for it.