Want to create tomorrow’s digital enterprise? Break down your silos first.

In Asia Pacific, organizational silos are a major barrier to digital transformation. How can businesses break them down and unlock their full digital potential? 

Digital transformation has taken Asia Pacific region by storm this year but it does not come without challenges. According to 451 Research, 27 percent of Asian businesses reported that organizational silos were one of the major roadblocks to digital transformation. In Singapore however, it presents a bigger challenge. Thirty-six percent of respondents expressed concerns about overcoming internal silos and outdated work practices.

Clearly, business practices and organizational culture affect the success and failure of a digital transformation project. Hence, it’s crucial to put in place an IT framework and a roadmap of procedures to define, monitor, and coordinate multiple touchpoints and workflows and overcome silos as a result. Here are three areas organizations can focus on:

1.     Use IT to drive customer experience differentiation

Organizations have to keep their eyes on the prize: delivering better customer experiences. And in order to power customer-centric strategies, organizations need to focus their investments on streamlining their back-end infrastructure—not just the front. For instance, IT has to be able to integrate customer data from various systems and analyze them to gain a 360-degree view of their wants and needs.

This will unlock numerous customer benefits. For instance, customers will enjoy personalized engagement and frictionless omni-channel experiences when interacting with a brand. Taking it a step further, businesses can use the customer insights to proactively offer relevant products and services at the right time and create new offerings.

2.     Control the clouds before they control you

Many organizations are adopting multiple cloud platforms to better match IT resources to their business needs and drive agility. However, they are likely to end up with data silos created by different clouds, which may not easily integrate with each other.

Implementing a platform to manage a multi-cloud environment is a way to overcome the problem. Doing so promotes cross workload data integration and workflows, allowing applications to be quickly developed and deployed. To fully benefit from cloud services, organizations also need to ensure that networks and systems are able to provide fast, reliable connectivity at any time. This will give organizations a competitive edge, help drive revenue growth, and optimize cloud investments. 

3.     Fostering a collaborative culture

Once IT has been streamlined, organizations will have a robust foundation from which to drive optimal utilization of human resources, infrastructure, goods, and materials. They can enable more collaborative ways of working, such as mobile workforce initiatives.

A more unified IT infrastructure also means better cross-departmental workflows. Different teams will have access to crucial pieces of customer data, allowing them to have a better understanding of who they are targeting. It will also allow organizations to scale easily, creating new services and reach more markets.

Use these three focus areas as starting points for overcoming organizational silos today. Ensure the success of digital transformation by enabling cross-functional collaboration to drive transformation efforts and integrate business processes. For additional support, organizations can also turn to third-party providers to help create an actionable roadmap to break down silos and establish the digital enterprise of tomorrow.

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