A management consultancy has released an online software tool that it says will help break down internal barriers at department and employee-specific levels, showing where productivity is being hampered.

Silo Buster, released by Inspiring Business Performance (IBP), has at its heart a survey in which employees rate the effectiveness of relationships between individuals and departments in 12 key areas including attitude, professionalism and responsiveness.

IBP managing director John Telfer says: “The performance of every individual within an organisation depends upon the performance of others and unfortunately a 'silo' mentality is all too common. Mistakes are seen as the fault of other groups, and problems as the responsibility of other departments.

“A gap or bottleneck in a process, whether it is a breakdown in communication or a physical task being performed incorrectly or late, can lead to failure in providing quality and timely service to (paying) customers. This, in turn, has a negative effect on repeat sales.”