Great question, @David Sadowsky  

I feel like ours has grown as we have grown and we may have the odd case of shiny object syndrome.  I think we would categorize our approach as cost vs. benefit and if we have invested in a tool, an app, a system we continuously work toward optimal use.  

If we cannot see a benefit or a way for tech to grow with us we will look for alternatives.  More often we find that we need to get more involved with the functionality.  Having someone champion an APP at the team use level is a key part.

With subscription costs rising I can see this as a metric to measure.

We don’t have a tight system, but we have two main qualitative goals when evaluating software:

• Does it help smooth workflow peaks and make life easier for staff?
  • We are evaluating outsourced payroll vs handling payroll in-house
  • We switched to Karbon to understand work better
  • We are evaluating TB software to make accounting easier during tax season
  • We evaluated OCR to help cut down on tax return keying time
  • Adding single sign-on when possible
  • Switched to a password manager
  • Switched to Windows Hello for Business
  • Switched to VOIP softphones
• Does it solve a client issue?
  • We switched to typeform because of client complaints regarding M365 Froms
  • We switched to Karbon because of client complaints about our previous portal

For me, software ROI isn’t always in dollars. Sometimes it’s easier on our staff, which is a non-dollar benefit.

To add to what @max said I think you also have to analyze your utilization.

You need to try and maximize your investment through high utilization of said investment and not duplicating unused functionality.

Most business are paying for an office suite (for example) are are probably only utilizing 10-20% of it’s functionality. 

@David Sadowsky 

Hi

Can you explain how you are using sharefile and Karbon - this is where we are at the moment and are going to move to Microsoft 365 to get to Sharepoint and use the DMS integration.

Thanks

David Campbell

Hi @David Campbell. We had Sharefile, that all of our clients have been on for years and we are relatively new to Karbon so only a few clients are using the client request feature so far. We haven’t yet done any of the DMS integration since all our files are on our own server that is not connected to Google Drive or Microsoft 365.