Silos synonyms, silos antonyms

Because of their disconnected nature, data silos can be hard to detect. Ideally, IT and data management teams will create an inventory of the systems in their organizations and regularly update it to add new ones. But finding them all may be a challenge, especially in large organizations with business units that operate autonomously.

All content on this website, including dictionary, thesaurus, literature, geography, and other reference data is for informational purposes only. This information should not be considered complete, up to date, and is not intended to be used in place of a visit, consultation, or advice silo synonym of a legal, medical, or any other professional. An example of an information silo would be the electronic management system used for medical records. An information silo is an information management system that is unable to freely communicate with other information management systems.

From our Multilingual Translation Dictionary

Siloed data typically is stored in a standalone system and often is incompatible with other data sets. That makes it hard for users in other parts of the organization to access and use the data. Information silos are created when management does not believe there to be enough benefit from sharing information, and access to information might not be useful to personnel in other systems. Data silos hinder business operations and the data analytics initiatives that support them. Silos limit the ability of executives to use data to manage business processes and make informed business decisions. They also prevent call center agents, sales reps and other operational workers from accessing relevant data about customers, products, supply chains and more.

• Siloed data typically is stored in a standalone system and often is incompatible with other data sets.
• But finding them all may be a challenge, especially in large organizations with business units that operate autonomously.
• Silos limit the ability of executives to use data to manage business processes and make informed business decisions.
• More often, though, information silos are considered to be a cultural problem caused by departments or individual workers who don’t want to share information.
• Silos may lead to the development of contrasting systems that can lead to an increase in costs and a lack of synergy.

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Translation of silo

The terms data silo and information silo are sometimes used as synonyms. More often, though, information silos are considered to be a cultural problem caused by departments or individual workers who don’t want to share information. In addition to cultural change, one way to address the latter problem is to create an information architecture along with a data architecture.

A bottleneck in information results in inefficiency as different departments may be working with a series of alternate understandings for completion of a project. This can easily lead to a number of missed opportunities for the business, or in the worst case, contribute to the overall failure of a company. Information silos occur whenever a data system is incompatible or not integrated with other data systems. This incompatibility may occur in the technical architecture, in the application architecture, or in the data architecture of any data system. However, since it has been shown that established data modeling methods are the root cause of the data integration problem,[1] most data systems are at least incompatible in the data architecture layer. A data silo is a repository of data that’s controlled by one department or business unit and isolated from the rest of an organization, much like grass and grain in a farm silo are closed off from outside elements.

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When different departments in a business do not share the same priorities and work with different sets of data, management may create an environment that discourages communication and collaboration between groups. As groups work separately and continue to restrict shared access to information and systems, it becomes more difficult to create a consensus on priorities for the entire company. This could lead to employee frustration and result in missed deadlines, misplaced priorities, or an outright failure to achieve business goals. When information is not readily available across the organization, it can result in faulty decision-making based on inaccurate or out-of-date data. An information silo can result in problems such as a duplication of effort and redundant job roles. Silos may lead to the development of contrasting systems that can lead to an increase in costs and a lack of synergy.

Data silos can have technical, organizational or cultural roots. They tend to arise naturally in large companies because separate business units may operate independently and have their own goals, priorities and IT budgets. But any organization can end up with data silos if it doesn’t have a well-planned data management strategy.

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Communication within an information silo is always vertical, making it difficult or impossible for the system to work with unrelated systems. These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word ‘siloed.’ Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Definition and synonyms of silo from the online English dictionary from Macmillan Education. PCMag.com is a leading authority on technology, delivering lab-based, independent reviews of the latest products and services.