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Everyone Talks About Data Silos. The Costlier Problem Is Competence Silos
Everyone talks about data silos. The costlier problem sits elsewhere: in competence silos. By that I mean knowledge about relationships that exists only in individual heads.
The sales director knows the target market is gradually saturating, and that doubling the advertising budget will therefore not double revenue. The buyer knows which increase in raw material prices hits which product and how hard. And in production it is clear at what utilisation level costs jump.
Each of them is right on their own. Because nobody has the whole chain in view, it still does not add up to a complete picture. If the larger advertising budget opens up a new audience, terms and return rates may change too. And someone else knows about that.
A good driver model supplies these connections. It gets the knowledge out of individual heads and makes it visible to everyone.
Data silos can be broken open with technology. Competence silos only get broken open when someone actually collects the knowledge and makes it usable. That is exactly the step almost no project plans for.