If not done right, businesses will remain saddled with runaway costs and clunky software.
In a digitized economy, IT firms occupy a large chunk of every business’ budget. The IT managers struggle to reduce their ever-growing IT costs while ensuring that the business operation does not suffer.
The abundance of software solutions for every business serves only to multiply the problem. They struggle to understand which customer relationship management tool is the best suited for their sales team, which email campaigning tool to use, and how to integrate sales and marketing software.
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It is essential to make smart choices while buying the right software. Here are four tips that assist in finding the right software fit and investing correctly:
Minimize the number of vendors
The SaaS industry is replete with the single-product companies that excel in just one area. To integrate best-of-breed software aimed to meet growing business needs, firms face staggering costs along with a complex web of new issues. Recognizing this as a challenge, vendors have started beefing up their product portfolio by either products diversification or acquisition of other companies offering a pre-integrated software suite.
Choosing an end-to-end solution will help to bring down software cost, also allowing different teams to synchronize and work better together. For example, a customer experience platform brings together CRM, email campaigns, and marketing tools for social media, to help desk software – under one umbrella. Such systems allow customer-facing teams to collaborate on improving customer experience by seamlessly sharing information.
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Evaluate flexibility to customize
To fight the competition, firms should be able to customize the software to suit business needs instead of changing the working style to accommodate the software. Customized tools will have better adoption among employees, along with enhanced scalability. Once the software is customized to blend with internal processes, it becomes a part of the company’s culture.
Adopt a low-code platform for IT needs
It is essential to empower all teams with tools to build their own solutions. Companies should have low-code platforms that allow users to create customized applications using drag-and-drop fields specific to the problem. These simple platforms are built for users who do not have programming knowledge and expertise. The IT department can focus on technical problems and more significant issues instead of being overwhelmed by custom app requests.
Adoption of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
AI enables marketers to increase sales and focus on customer retention. It helps in refining online customer experience by generating personalized messaging. However, AI technology is sadly underutilized, giving the early adopters a considerable advantage. Firms should adopt AI to become more efficient. AI and ML also suggest automation of routine tasks, freeing up time for salespeople to concentrate on engaging with prospects. Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence can bolster software, giving firms the true value for money.
By smartly choosing the software, firms not only bring down the IT costs but also improve the productivity and efficiency of the employees.
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