A study published in 2019 showed that 82% of employees believe their productivity is suffering due to poor information management.
As a business owner, you’re probably all too familiar with this situation: a question arises that requires input from multiple departments. Perhaps it is budget-related, or maybe it involves a process that extends from one department to another. The meeting becomes heated with each department lead competing for who is right. Everyone challenges everyone else’s data or methods and management ultimately ends up being the referee. Yet without the complete picture, the resolution is likely to fall short, or worse yet: be incorrect. It’s not necessarily management’s fault. When the data is incomplete, is easy to get lost or go with what you think you know. Decisions are made, and the effectiveness of those decisions is determined by luck. Over time, the competition among departments erodes collaboration and trust and turns the environment toxic. Employees who can’t “hack it” are fired, others quit, tribal knowledge is lost, and management complains they can’t find good people.
The unfortunate truth is that communication issues – resulting from information mismanagement or incomplete data – among departments is the fastest way to erode collaboration and company performance.
Employees don’t do this because of malintent. They are well-meaning employees who are working with the tools they’ve been given. Everyone in the room only has access to a piece of the picture, and, when these conflict, they challenge each other. That behavior turns into a pattern and then into a culture. Without confronting the issue of information mismanagement head-on, over time it can appear as if it becomes instilled as a corporate ‘value.’
This scenario is a direct result of siloed data and how it impairs the ability of each department to see the forest through the trees. Each department is working directly with the data sources relevant to their job. But there’s no aggregation across departments to create a picture for the entire business. Since everyone can back their data, it’s all true. But it is only a piece of the puzzle.
To correct the issue, management needs the resources to create a centralized system that’s able to connect the ‘data’ dots of the whole company.
This is a system or standardized processing that combines all the businesses data into one location. The users then interact with the reports instead of the sources, eliminating the need for any interpretation. Each department can then touch base with data from other departments and eliminate any debate over which source of data is correct. Ultimately, it allows a more open, transparent pool of information that can better promote cross-training and collaboration among the departments, and begin to rebuild trust among its members. Fortunately, at Omega Digital Solutions, we have an expert team that can help close those gaps and get things back to talking the way they should.
But if you’re looking for another reason to warrant the need for the system outside your people (though for us, that’s more than enough), there are many other benefits to consider.
You’ll easily find that this system – curated to your company’s needs – eliminates:
- Duplication and redundancy from departments storing the same information.
- Updates in real-time in a way everyone has access to.
- And allows a simplified and cohesive structure to improve performance and operational efficiency.
Now, isn’t that the company story you’d like to tell?
