We often receive phone calls from companies facing challenges with their current financial software and operations systems. They need help identifying their true needs and finding a solution that best fits their business. What might prompt that initial phone call is slightly different from company to company. Their sales and customer service platform is not integrated with their financial system, causing a lot of manual, duplicate data entry, or they’ve just learned their current solution will no longer be supported by the software vendor in a few years.

When faced with the decision to invest in new systems, many companies are slow to respond and hesitant to move forward. Management is busy and doesn’t want to spend the money. The operations team might not want to integrate with financials. They are doing nothing, and it is costing them a lot.

Here are four ways doing nothing is costing you and your company money:

• 1. People
  When a company decides to stick with systems that are outdated or inefficient, it is likely to face challenges attracting and retaining talent. Employees might get frustrated doing tasks that could be automated or that require duplicate data entry. They might feel they are not working to the best of their ability. Will they see a future there? I recently heard from an acquaintance that resigned as the controller of a closely-held business when it was clear that the owner was not going to engage in making some much needed changes. The owner lost a valuable asset and will pay the human resource costs to replace the controller.

• 2. Technology
  As technology evolves, software and hardware become obsolete. Cloud-based software has eliminated a lot of hardware needs. It has also replaced a lot of traditional on-premise software. In many cases, software vendors are eliminating their support for these traditional software packages. If you don’t transition to a new solution, there will be no help when there are problems, and the cost of migrating will go up. Prolonged system outages can have a significant impact on the bottom line.

• 3. Customer Service
  Technology has raised the bar on customer expectations. Customers expect that you have their information at their fingertips. Customers may also expect online support requests and electronic invoicing. Without premier customer service, customers will go elsewhere.

• 4. Efficiency
  Old systems and old processes are probably not as efficient and effective as they used to be. They can probably be improved with new technology. Over time, new processes are developed to handle new situations or sidestep the limitations of the old way of doing things. Along with leveraging the features of more advanced software, business processes can be optimized to save time and money.

Final Thoughts

If you believe, “it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” it may be time to redefine “broke.” Just because something seems to be working, it doesn’t mean it’s working well. Whether you are gambling that a server won’t die or that your employees won’t leave for a more sophisticated business, it might be time to consider the cost of doing nothing.

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Shelly Bitter is a Senior Manager in Moore Colson’s Corporate Accounting Practice. She provides support to our clients wherever software expertise is required. Typical projects include system requirements analysis, software and vendor selection assistance, project management and report design.