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Software hasn’t been the universal, productivity-boosting panacea many of us hoped it would be — or assume it is.
With software, you could say we have too much of a good thing. According to Workfront’s 2019 State of Work Report in the US, 44% of respondents are requesting more software tools to help them manage their work. One reason is because the vast majority of respondents — 86% — assume that automation will free them from drudgery so they can rethink their work in fresh, innovative ways.
For this and other reasons, many companies continue to grow their software stacks, especially with Software as a Service (SaaS) apps. For example, according to cloud security firm Netskope, the average number of cloud services in use per enterprise on its platform increased to 1,246 in October 2018 from 1,181 in February 2018.
So, what’s the problem? Consider what’s happening in many marketing and sales departments today. A HubSpot survey found that 82% of marketers and salespeople lose several hours every week due to the need to manage different technologies. In addition, 72% of salespeople spend up to one hour daily entering data and connecting records from a myriad of software tools. Meanwhile, 75% of marketers spend up to an hour each day analyzing data and connecting reports from different marketing tools, HubSpot says. To make matters worse, the majority of respondents say 1 to 5 of the tools they use have redundant capabilities.
Here’s a look at why so many teams are struggling with software bloat — and what you can do about it.
Why Your Team Is Using too Many Software Tools
Years ago, email became the hub for more than just sending and receiving messages. It was only meant to be a communication medium and not a place to get work done, but it evolved into a work nucleus. People began using email to share documents, make to-do lists, handle approvals, organize projects, communicate via chats, archive files, and so on.
More recently, numerous speciality apps have sprung up to take over some of the jobs users had entrusted to their email applications. While these apps often do a better job of handling chores that email was never meant to do, the unintended consequence has been a proliferation of software tools.
Also, different teams frequently want their own software solutions. The tools that marketing and sales use for chat, file sharing, collaboration and other tasks often vary from the tools that human resources, accounting or other departments use. As a consequence, an organization becomes awash in software, which adds cost and makes the IT department’s job more complicated, among other drawbacks.
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In addition, most software isn’t flexible enough to handle all the new features you want. Consequently, you must either wait for a vendor to provide those features or find a different solution that provides what you need. And in the process, you end up adding yet more software to the stack.
The Impact of too Many Software Tools
What happens when your software stack becomes bloated beyond recognition? The following is just a sampling of the adverse effects.
- A fragmented spread of software requires an intense amount of manual work to move data from one system to another. Application programming interfaces (APIs) can help. But you can end up with a deck-of-cards style map of hand-stitched API integrations that can break at any minute.
- When data is spread out everywhere, it stymies collaboration. Management can’t get essential reports and analytics without tedious cross-checks. Interdepartmental teamwork suffers. And so does morale: 63% of US workers have wanted to quit because poor communications interferes with their ability to do their job. In turn, employees resort to piecemeal solutions, which puts security and compliance at risk.
- Having to toggle between apps distracts and slows workers. More than two-thirds waste up to 60 minutes a day juggling work apps.
- Because of the fragmentation, companies spend millions of dollars on multiple software solutions that often have a lot of feature overlap and some that are downright copies of each other. Application subscriptions are usually reasonable — but they can add up quickly.
- After an app is deployed, workers sometimes realize it doesn't offer the proper conditions settings or other capabilities. In some cases, a project shifts direction, but the new ideas don't fit into the app framework. The cycle of adding apps continues because the software in place lacks flexibility to accommodate new business requirements.
When employees aren’t offered the tools they need for work, they resort to shadow IT, adding yet more apps to the stack — and potentially increasing security risks.
The Solution: A Digital Workplace
Overwhelmed by super-sized software stacks, many organizations today are trading in their tool sets for a digital workplace environment.
A digital workplace is what email was becoming — but wasn’t designed to handle. It’s a unified software platform capable of managing all of your organization’s daily activities. A digital workplace solution offers tools to handle various tasks, processes, projects, communications and unpredictable use cases. It boosts productivity, reduces software costs and complexities, breaks down silos, and fosters a collaborative workplace culture across departments.
A digital workplace enables:
- Predictable, system-led processes managed in an automation module.
- Streamlined workflows created by IT professionals or citizen developers.
- One-time projects that can be planned in a separate, more flexible module.
- Management of cases with similar beginnings but with different outcomes.
- Built-in collaboration tools that keep everyone on the same page, literally and figuratively.
- The ability to reduce dozens of monthly software subscriptions across multiple departments to one subscription encompassing multiple tools.
- A consolidated platform where all internal information is readily available vs. a fragmented digital culture.
- The ability to operate in a central platform that reduces digital distraction, so employees can focus on one item at a time.
- Simplified communication. Correspondence surrounding automated processes take place within the workflow; the same is true for projects and cases. This helps lighten the load of endless email and eliminates the confusion of figuring out who the next point of contact should be.
Less Is Indeed More
After years of piling on more and more software tools onto ever-expanding stacks, the concept of “less is more” has gained traction in terms of enterprise software. Because with a digital workplace, less is more. You have fewer software tools to pay for and manage, but more productivity. More meaningful collaboration. And perhaps most of all, the digital workplace can deliver more time for team members to focus on the fresh thinking that feeds innovation and competition.
