This approach poses many challenges to the organization including:

• Software Expense
• Data duplication
• Functional replication challenges
• Separate management and separate data expectations
• Common business functions that will diverge over time
• Eventual inability for inter-departmental communication
• Disparate databases that are not shared and do not communicate with one another

This method of centralizing all of the organizations data offers many advantages including:

• No duplication of data
• Single standard interface
• Centralized data management
• Ease in developing new business functions
• Open communication between business units
• All databases accessible to all business units