Breaking Down Silos with a Wireless Presentation System

A wireless presentation system has many benefits: eliminating messy cables, streamlining content, and an all round smoother meeting experience.

But one of the best advantages of having a wireless presentation system is the ability to bring everyone from different departments together to collaborate – whether they are inside or outside the office. Thus eliminating the “silo culture”.

The ‘Silo Culture’

One challenge that a lot of organisations have these days, is overcoming the “silo culture”.

Silos tend to be unknowingly created. A company, in order to succeed, needs to have a structure in place.

Although, usually by accident, these structures develop separate relationships within the company.

Some say that silos occur whenever employees develop more loyalty to a group rather than the company. I think this is unfair.

When people work as teams or in departments, they are inevitably going to form a stronger bond with each other, compared to those working within a different department. But this doesn’t mean they aren’t loyal to the organisation.

It can however, introduce a “them and us” mentality between departments – especially if certain departments seem to be getting more recognition or attention than others.

And when this happens, company-wide objectives are rarely ever met.

Challenges with the Silo Culture

Silos are still a widespread problem today, especially as organisations grow larger, and more silos are unintentionally created.

This is further exacerbated by the increasing pace of change, which means people have less time to do anything outside of their own role.

Research from Salesforce highlights that a massive “97% of workers believe a lack of alignment within a team directly impacts the outcome of a task or project”.

And further research shows that 70% of employees believe the silo mentality is the biggest organisational hurdle to improving customer experience.

Therefore, silos can be detrimental to a company’s success. They result in localised, disconnected decision-making, a lack of accountability (the well known ‘blame-game’), and departments that are resistant to change. Not to mention a severe lack of communication and demoralised employees. All of which hamper business growth.

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Employees are often rewarded for achieving goals within their silo, regardless of the negative impact their actions have on other departments and the company. A department might take one step forward, but the company takes two steps back, making progress difficult.

Simply forcing departments to work together or share information won’t work. If the silo culture is embedded long enough, this sometimes causes further resentment.

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It’s more beneficial to reward employees based on overall company performance. This allows company objectives to be aligned, whilst still driving the goals of each department. It lets individuals see how their work fits into the big picture and also creates accountability (which can be severely lacking in siloed companies). This accountability boosts efficiency, as no departments want to be seen to hold anyone back.

It’s well known that engaged staff, striving towards a common goal, are significantly more productive, and work more efficiently and proactively. Working towards a common goal helps break down siloed departments.

But how can different departments break their siloed habits and get together with other departments, to work towards this common goal?

We are recommending that organisations do everything they can to facilitate collaboration, communication, and connectedness between all of their employees.

And technology can help with this.

Wireless Presentation Systems

Wireless presentation systems allow employees to communicate and collaborate. With multi-person screen-sharing and interactive whiteboards, employees can share content, bounce ideas off each other, and make decisions together.

Video and audio enablement allow departments to fully communicate with other departments, even if they’re in a different location. Team members can be anywhere – as long as they have an internet connection, they can contribute and communicate with those in the office.

It’s crucial that the technology does not become a barrier to better working, but makes it much easier to achieve. It should be quick and easy to use, to enable collaborative working across the organisation.

If you’re unsure of what features to look for in wireless presentation technology, check out our infographic below.

Facilitating collaborative working not only breaks down silos – it also means company decisions are made together. And if all departments are contributing to decisions – you can be assured of company success.

Next Steps

Interested in finding out more about wireless presentation systems? Book a Montage demo now!

We hope you enjoyed this blog. Another blog you may find interesting is ‘Improve Collaboration with Remote Workers’