https://thenextweb.com/contributors/2018/05/24/data-integration-isnt-cheap-here-are-3-ways-to-make-it-more-affordable/

Before the internet, companies generally kept their important information in physical folders. Leads were kept in one folder, sales data was kept in another and so on.

While this may have been the best method available at the time, there’s no denying that it wasn’t always very efficient. This was especially true of larger companies that had seemingly endless supplies of data and reports to sift through.