Data silo
A data silo is business information held in one team's system where the rest of the business cannot reach it, so answers that should be immediate require asking someone.
Also written: information siloArabic: جزر البيانات
How they form
Almost never deliberately. A team adopts a tool that solves their problem well, it fills with information nobody else can see, and by the time that matters the tool is load-bearing. Silos are a by-product of solving local problems quickly.
What they cost
Delay, duplicated effort, and decisions made on partial information. The expensive version is when two teams act on different pictures of the same customer or the same stock.
Removing one without removing the tool
Usually the answer is not migration. It is integration: leave the specialist tool where it is and make the records it owns readable by the rest of the business.
Related terms
Questions people ask
Often the most consequential one, because it is invisible to IT, has no access control, and typically lives on one person's machine.
Usually not. If it does its job well, connect it. Replacement is warranted when the tool cannot be integrated at all.
Related serviceTechnology consulting