"Silo-ization is a learned behavior that needs to be unlearned."
This is an excellent article that should be read by every business professional; it will help you understand the future: The Data-Centric Revolution: An Interview with Dave McComb. Here is the summary:
Summary: Are today's economics of software projects and support inevitable? No. They are a product of the fact that the industry has collectively chosen the application-centric route to implementing new functionality. When every business problem calls for a new application and every new application comes with its own database, what you really get is runaway complexity. Many clients have thousands of applications. But it isn't inevitable. A few firms have shown the way out: data-centric development. In this ground-breaking interview, Dave McComb explains what being 'data-centric' is about and how it can be made to work.