A Guide to Managing Software in Your Business

Published August 19, 2021

Many businesses make use of third-party software to be able to properly manage their company and operations. However, you should not just acquire these with little thought as they could then begin to impact other areas of the business without you realising. Here is a quick guide on what you need to know to ensure that you are correctly managing the software in your business.

Cost-Effective

You need to keep track of the cost of each of these tools and what the total expense of them is. Though the cost of each one might be quite low individually, things can quickly climb if you have a lot of different tools that you pull on for various functions. You need to make sure that you keep a total running cost of all of the software, and you might be spending more than you initially thought each month.

If you are paying out more than you thought you would, you have to think about some of the areas that you could trim down and make a savings. Are there some tools that you could do without, or even potentially find a free version of? If you are paying a fair bit of money each month for one function from a much larger piece of software, it might be time to look elsewhere for another solution.

Renewals

It is also important to keep an eye on your renewals when they are due. You need to make sure that you pay each of your contracts on time – whether this is on a monthly or annual basis – or you could risk losing access to the software and the tools that you need for a certain task. If these software buying payments are spread out throughout the month, it might be a little difficult to keep track of when everything is due on top of the rest of your operations.

Business owners might want to make use of tools like the software buying platform Vendr to ensure that they are making their payments at the right time. Losing the wrong piece of software can result in you not being able to complete what might be a vital task, and it can throw many of your other operations off. You need to make sure that you always have access to the software you need to run your company.

Ease of Use

How intuitive are some of the tools that you choose to use in your business? Something might be highly reviewed and come with a ton of recommendations, but that does not always mean that your staff are going to be able to use it easily. You need to make sure that they are going to be able to get on with the task at hand without getting caught up in some of the intricacies presented by the software.

This is why getting feedback from your employees is crucial. If they are struggling to use the software, you might need to arrange a training day or even think about looking for a new solution. You can’t expect your employees to be able to make use of a tool that they can’t use properly and be able to maintain a good level of efficiency. If they are do not find a tool easy to use, this is going to have a major impact on their ability to work.

Updates

You need to make sure that you keep an eye out for any updates that might be coming for the software that you are using. Some pieces might upgrade automatically, others might need you to trigger a manual installation.

One thing that you need to watch for is a demand from the parent company that you switch to the latest installation. There are many companies out there that will stop support for one of their products if they have later versions of it, and they will expect their customers to make the switch to the latest. This can sometimes come with an increase in subscription fees too. If the software no longer works for you as a company, you might decide to look for an alternative elsewhere.

There are so many pieces of tech out there that can help you to achieve your goals in business, but you need to make sure that it is actually working properly for you. If you are not using the right solution, you will see this reflected in your output. You need to make sure that you are always searching for tools that are going to be of value to you as a business owner, and that your staff can use to complete their tasks quickly and efficiently. If something is not working well for you, this could be a clear indicator that you should look for a new piece of software.