Silo Culture at Sony Inc.

Silo mentality is an attitude found in some organizations that occurs when several departments or groups do not want to share information or knowledge with other individuals in the same company. A silo mentality reduces efficiency and can be a contributing factor to a failing corporate culture. Managers of successful firms spend a lot of their time trying to ensure that information flows freely between departments to ensure that all aspects of the company are functioning effectively. Contemporary management views suggest that the silo mentality mindset must be broken in order for employees to remain motivated and be happy to come to work. Efficient companies promote the sharing of information in an attempt to let the combination of groups function as a team.

Silo culture:
No business, institution, or government agency is immune from silo syndrome in which barriers develop among the organization's many parts. But adopting collaborative culture, processes, and tools can keep silo syndrome in check and create greater value. The term "silo" is a metaphor suggesting a similarity between grain silos that segregate one type of grain from another and the segregated parts of an organization. In an organization suffering from silo syndrome, each department or function interacts primarily within that "silo" rather than with other groups across the organization. Marketing may develop its own culture and have difficulty interacting with other functions such as sales or engineering. This manifestation of silo syndrome breeds insular thinking, redundancy, and suboptimal decision-making. Silo syndrome can also impact business units, wreaking havoc with customers. In a typical scenario, separate sales organizations for each business unit fail to coordinate. When sales representatives from different silos call on the same people, customers may conclude that the vendor either has no regard for his or her time or that the salespeople and the company they represent are...