Information Silo

An information silo is a management system incapable of reciprocal operation with other, related information systems. For example, a bank's management system is considered a silo if it cannot exchange information with other related systems within its own organization, or with the management systems of its customers, vendors, or business partners. "Information silo" is a pejorative expression that is useful for describing the absence of operational reciprocity. In Information Technology, the absence of operational reciprocity is between disparate systems also commonly referred to as disparate data systems. Derived variants are "silo thinking", "silo vision", and "silo mentality".

The expression is typically applied to management systems where the focus is inward and information communication is vertical. Critics of silos contend that managers serve as information gatekeepers, making timely coordination and communication among departments difficult to achieve, and seamless interoperability with external parties impractical. They hold that silos tend to limit productivity in practically all organizations, provide greater opportunity for security lapses and privacy breaches, and frustrate consumers who increasingly expect information to be immediately available and complete. Although much has been written about them, information silos are becoming far more recognized as the major reason why organizations are unable to take full advantage of the Internet's power to interconnect business processes.