According to the latest blog post from Joe Lewis, CEO of Fame Rental, one of the biggest risks any growing and evolving rental company faces is the creation of information “silos” as it adds new systems and processes.
Lewis writes, “We refer to a system that is disconnected from everything else as a ‘silo.’ If, by chance, someone has connected that silo to another related system, then you have a ‘bridge’ or a ‘tunnel.’ Silos create an environment where one of two bad things happen. First, if disconnected, the only people who can benefit from the information in that silo are the people who use it. Second, if any two systems are connected with a bridge or tunnel, then you often have two versions of the same truth.”
One solution Lewis suggests is to think of rental business systems as rooms in a house. "If a business has evolved into using multiple and disparate systems, it may find that some processes in one system would benefit from information in another system," Lewis says. "Kick down the walls, open up the metaphorical space where the information exists, and let the interaction, information sharing, and collaboration fuel business success."
