Consolidating your software in 2023

For many years now, there’s been a reactive nature to technology within almost all businesses across the world. COVID-19 saw a monumental increase in remote work and as such the requirement for multiple types of SaaS saw a rise too. IT departments were overworked as a result, having to facilitate a new environment to work within and meeting the requirements of individual members of staff to give them access to the same software they would have had at home.

This trend then, should have ended more recently as businesses seek to return to normal. What we do still have is more acceptance of remote meetings rather than in person and other software has continued to be popular such as instant messaging and cloud based software for remote/hybrid teams.

So why is it a problem?

What we’ve noticed however is a huge hangover from some businesses that are still using or linked to software that they utilised as a requirement arose, but now they wouldn’t really make use of or that can be facilitated elsewhere. Licensing, as any IT or Financial department will tell you, is an expensive part of budgeting. Having multiple licences for lots of different software types across businesses can cause many other issues too such as security and the standardisation of a work environment or onboarding.

That said, there are many positives to having the right software that will meet the needs of your team. What should happen though in almost all businesses on a frequent basis is an in depth audit of the software used across the organisation and where possible - bringing that all into one place

An example of this is how many people adopted Zoom and Slack over the last few years. There was an immediate necessity for remote meeting software and there was a mass scramble for something that was easy to use as well people having familiarity with the interface. Now however, we have often found that it’s frequently just one or two teams within an organisation that continue to use the software and not always for its intended purpose. Other software has been created and improved in order to consolidate an organisation's SaaS and there are some departments that either resist or are unaware. One such example is Google Workspace. We have a natural proclivity towards Google Workspace, but when companies have Google Workspace and don’t utilise Google Meet, instead opting to pay (in some cases) thousands for licences on Slack or Zoom - it leads us to question why, and how companies can work to reduce their SaaS spend as well as present a perfectly viable solution to their teams.

What can we do?

This too stretches across other SaaS applications. As a society we’ve moved towards a monthly subscription based service model rather than buying software outright and it has made costs surge in companies when there are now perfectly viable (and in some cases better) alternatives available.

So as a company, ask yourself “do we really need X software” and look closer to home for the alternatives available. Some software was essential a few years ago and there will be teams that are familiar with it, but if you’re only using a type of software “because we always have” it might be time to look into that in more detail, if not for budgeting reasons then most certainly if security is something on your immediate agenda.As a dedicated Google Workspace partner, we provide solutions to businesses and help them achieve success.To speak to us about software consolidation or better utilisation of the software in your organisation, please do get in touch here or call us on +353 01 685 4666.