In a traditional enterprise, the business information systems are normally used to capture and track the activities and functions of business units. Each business unit uses systems and software that caters to its business needs. Information maintained by these systems is localized to each business unit, and may not available for use between the business units. Another drawback is that the same types of information is maintained by multiple business systems across the business units. A customer's information may be maintained by the sales unit, marketing unit, and product support unit. Any change in the customer information in one system may not be reflected in systems maintained by other business units. Such discrepencies in business information get magnified over a period of time, and may cause significant errors, inefficiencies and disruptions in the operation of business. The cause of this problem, commonly referred as 'Information Silos', becomes severe as the size and complexity of a business increases.
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