Beyond silo thinking: How collaboration boosts corporate success

Erik Esly
November 28, 2025
3 min. reading time

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Whether industrial giant or start-up - there are often real parallel worlds in companies. Departments optimize their processes in isolation, prioritize internal KPIs and pass on risks instead of managing them jointly and strategically.

Who hasn't experienced this? In procurement, the focus is on savings, while in the supply chain, meetings are held one after the other to overcome operational bottlenecks due to inadequate supplier performance.

This image is representative of many similar scenarios. This creates silos - invisible walls that isolate teams and departments from one another and make collaboration difficult despite common corporate goals.

Ultimately, all economic processes can be reduced to three words: People, products and profits. People come first. If you don't have a good team, you can't do much with the other two.

Lee Iacocca, US Automotive Manager, Former CEO Chrysler Corporation

The result: Slow decisions, duplication of work, innovation blockades and, in the end often dissatisfied customers. Silo thinking is not a question of mindset alone, but often a consequence of organizational design, structures and incentive systems.

Companies that want to be successful need to break down these silos - This is shown by current studies and impressive practical examples.

Out of silo thinking - joining forces for a turnaround: Chrysler and Iacocca's model for success

The legendary US manager Lee Iacocca took the helm at Chrysler in 1979, when the company on the verge of insolvency. In 1978, the company made a loss of around USD 205 million - caused by a recession, a sharp rise in oil prices and competition from economical imported vehicles, mainly from Japan and Germany, which led to overproduction and high inventories. high inventories with over 80,000 unsold vehicles. resulted.

The initial situation at that time is reminiscent of the challenges that companies face today due to global crises and rapid market changes Chrysler employed 170,000 people at the time.

Initially important was Iacocca's success in securing $1.5 billion in government loan guarantees through the Chrysler Corporation Loan Guarantee Act of 1979, signed by President Jimmy Carter. This loan was one of the largest bailouts for a private company at the time and ensured that Chrysler remained viable.

Through consistent cross-divisional restructuring, closer cooperation between purchasing between purchasing, supply chain, finance, IT, production and marketing as well as innovations, Chrysler achieved an increase in sales from approx. from around USD 17 billion to over USD 30 billion by the mid-1980s.

At the same time, significant cost reductions were realized, including a reduction in total costs from USD 4.5 billion (1979) to around USD 3.1 billion (1982).

By the mid-1980s, Chrysler was able to repay the loans in full and became profitable again - exemplifying the success of Iacocca's integrative leadership, which overcame silos and networked divisionsto save the company and make it future-proof future-proof.

Silos as strategic barriers: Key findings from the Deloitte Global CPO Survey 2025

The Deloitte Global CPO Survey 2025 identifies silos as a major barrier to value creation and resilience: Over 56% of procurement leaders see siloed ways of working and silo thinking as one of the top three barriers. Silos make cross-functional collaboration difficult, increase internal costs and undermine the resilience of supply chains.

Change requires investment in talent development, effective operating models and the targeted use of modern technologies such as Generative AI, Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and process orchestration. (Source: Deloitte Global CPO Survey 2025 see link at the end of the article),

Five proven levers for breaking down silos

Forming cross-divisional teams

Introduce cross-functional projects to strengthen cooperation and mutual understanding in a binding manner.

Define common end-to-end goals

Measure success not in isolation, but along the entire value chain - for real team responsibility.

Using agile methods and digital tools

Accelerate processes and create transparency with Scrum, Kanban and modern collaboration platforms.

Using technology strategically

Connect people and data efficiently with AI, automation and process-oriented management.

Redesigning leadership

Design leadership as a network bridge that overcomes silos and enables cross-divisional collaboration.

Silos are structural challengesthat primarily at management level, but also for all employees and must be solved together. This approach is indispensable in highly competitive markets - and requires courage, attitude and active, consistent action.

Rely on collaboration between your teams - and ensure speed, innovation and customer satisfaction.