EFFECTS OF DIVIDE AND CONQUER ON BUSINESS CONTINUITY WITHOUT CONQUERING THE DIVIDE: A STUDY INTO AT&T'S ORGANIZATIONAL INFORMATION, INTELLECTUAL, AND TECHNOLOGY SILOS

Corporations divide responsibilities to accomplish tasks efficiently. This divide of responsibilities must be synthesized ensuring smooth cooperation, communication, and coordination among departments, creating a unified corporate strategy. Some departments in the corporation continue to operate divided in some capacity. Operating in total or partial isolation with separate departments, processes, knowledge, and systems creates an organizational silo.

This study focused on investigating information, intellectual, and technology silos. Information silos when communication, research, instruction, and so forth are not dispersed throughout the organization to cross-functional teams. Intellectual silos are the result of insufficient skills and knowledge among employees and organizations. They restrict the flow of knowledge. Technology silos refer to systems that are specifically designed to provide advantages to a single organization by preference, or those which are incapable of being merged with a pre-existing system. Some technologies are antiquated and make interoperability difficult.

The study provided recommendations for resolving silo issues in AT&T’s Transformation organization. This quantitative analysis was completed by utilizing best practices derived from literature reviews and data gathered from both the application and its users during the implementation of Salesforce.