Are information silos costing your business?

IT services provider Empired is urging organisations to cultivate a culture of sharing to prevent silos of information which can cost the business money.

Dave Paylor, a principal consultant at Empired, says sharing ideas is where innovation comes from and every organisaton should encourage more sharing, rather than less.

"In fact, the cost of not sharing is often more than the cost of sharing, if you take into account the value of the intellectual property contained in all the documents in an organisation," Paylor says.

He cites the example of an organisation having five million files generated over 20 years, representing 20 years of intellectual property and having significant value to the business.

"If employees can access these documents freely, the company can save time and money because it takes less time to train employees, create new processes and documents, and get the information needed to complete tasks.

"Every time someone produces a document it has a level of value to the organisation and this is what needs to be driven into the minds of all employees," Paylor says.

"Essentially, organisations need to turn an old way of thinking on its head. Everything should be shared unless there is a reason to hide it.

However, Paylor acknowledges this requires a cultural shift and says the change starts with trying to help people understand that, if silos continue, the value the organisation is getting from information is limited.

"Of course there is always information that must be secured," he says.

"But when organisations can create a culture of openness, they can realise the full value of the documents that are being created and stored. Organisations that share everything that is possible to share will realise significant benefits both operationally and culturally."