How companies lose control: too many tools, too many Excels, too many versions of the truth

When a company buys too much software, digitalization starts to hurt

When digitizing companies, we often encounter one recurring problem. It's not that companies underestimate digitization. On the contrary. They usually try to gradually improve their operations and acquire specialized tools for individual parts of the workflow. This in itself makes sense in many cases. Not every company wants or needs to immediately go down the path of customized development.

But this is where the problem often begins, from my experience.

Over time, a company finds that it uses different software for each part of the work. One tool for sales, another for projects, a third for finances, another for documents, internal communication, reporting or approval. Each of these tools solves only part of the entire process, but together they no longer form a functional whole.

The result is usually very similar:

• data must be manually rewritten, duplicated or moved between different systems in a complex manner,
• people will no longer be sure where the correct version of the information actually exists,
• where is the source of truth? In the CRM? In the accounting system? In a spreadsheet? Or in some internal report that someone sends by email once a week?

And that's exactly when digitalization begins to hinder the company instead of helping it.

When we stop trusting data, Excel comes along

Once people lose trust in data, they start creating their own parallel records of basically everything they need. Typically in Excel or Google Sheets. They simply need to have something they can at least rely on.

But that only makes the problem worse.

There are more copies of data, more versions of reality, and more places where errors can occur. Each team starts to create its own “world,” its own reports, and its own way of working. Information is scattered across many files, spreadsheets, and communication paths that often no one else has access to or understands. The company then uses a lot of software, but it loses control over what is happening inside.

And that is often an even bigger problem than the money spent on licenses.

Two very similar stories from practice

We recently dealt with two cases that illustrate this well. In the first case, it was a law firm that does great work, but its technology stack had grown so much over time that it was paying hundreds of thousands of crowns a year just for licenses for various tools. Each of them was created as a solution to a specific need, but the whole was no longer effective. People also began to be dissatisfied with the amount of manual work that needed to be done when working with data. Therefore, it started to make sense to look at the situation from a new perspective and see if it was possible to remove, simplify, or replace some tools with a more unified solution and allow people to work more efficiently.

In the second case, it was a company focused primarily on hardware and services. When we were discussing it with the team, the problems were very similar:

• poorer communication between teams,
• data error rate,
• inconsistency in processes,
• low trust in information and the need to make different data available to different people in different ways,
• and here too, the costs of licenses became apparent, which were not visible at first glance, but in total amounted to hundreds of thousands of crowns per year.

Both companies also had a large number of their own Excel spreadsheets, where individuals or teams stored data for their own needs. And that's where control over the company slowly begins to fade. It didn't happen all at once, but people gradually added more and more. That's all the more dangerous.

The goal is not to develop tailor-made solutions at all costs.

It is important to say that the point of such a situation is not to automatically conclude that the only way out is to develop your own custom software. At this stage, this is often not even the best solution.

The goal is to find a suitable solution for your company, your people, your processes.

In some cases, it makes sense to create a dashboard that unifies data from multiple systems into one place, allowing management to finally see where things are really going. In other cases, it helps to connect existing tools so that people don't have to write the same data in five different places. And sometimes, the big win is simply to eliminate one tool that only covers a small part of the workflow (and sometimes only partially), but adds additional costs, complexity, and the risk of errors.

My experience helps me make assumptions - good digitalization is not about the amount of technology. It's about technology supporting the process, not complicating it.

The biggest benefit often doesn't lie in saving on licenses

The price of licenses is often visible, which is why it is easy to talk about it. Of course, it depends on each case and the specific prices of individual tools. But it is increasingly becoming clear that the main value of digitization lies elsewhere.

When employees make fewer mistakes, communicate better with each other, work with the same data and don't have to build their own parallel records, the reliability and speed of the entire company increases. Processes are more consistent, decision-making is faster and people can focus on the work that really brings value to the company. Not to mention, they also enjoy it more.

The result is often not only cost savings, but also that the company can do significantly more with the same number of people. And in the end, that is often much more important than cutting licenses.

Where does it all begin?

The typical problem of digitalization often doesn't start with a company using software. It starts with a company using too many separate tools that gradually grow into a state without clear logic, without connections, and without a unified view of data.

Once trust in information is lost, manual interventions, Excel spreadsheets aside, and gradual system bypassing set in. And at that point, it's not just about technology. It's about managing the company as such.

Therefore, when digitizing, it is crucial to ask not only which tool to purchase, but mainly what the company really needs:

• where the data is generated,
• who works with them,
• who should believe them
• and how to ensure that everyone is working towards the same reality.

This is where meaningful digitalization begins.

If you have recognized yourself in any part of the article, you are probably dealing with a similar situation in your company. The good news is that it can be solved. And often there is no need to turn everything upside down. However, it is necessary to name the problem correctly, determine priorities and choose a reasonable next step.

If you want to solve this situation, contact me. We can arrange a workshop where we will look at your biggest problems, processes and data. We will open up the most burning questions and then propose a solution that will make sense for your team and your company.