SaaS Misconceptions
We can cut the change budget
In recent years, businesses have invested many millions in digital technologies. That trend is set to continue and, in many cases, be amplified in the future, particularly following the COVID-19 pandemic.
It’s safe to say that businesses want to get the best price that they can for this technology. In most cases, they’ll need to meet a budget and cut their cloth accordingly. It’s also common that at some point within the procurement cycle, an organization will want or need to reduce a pricing proposal from a given vendor. Again, this is only more likely post-COVID.
There are a number of options open to the business during this stage:
- Apply pressure to the vendor to reduce their license costs
- Reduce the scope of the technology being purchased
- Remove services costs, such as change management or training
Given that option 1 and 2 may seem immovable and unacceptable, some businesses opt for option 3. Whether led by saving face or the belief that the software is intuitive enough not to need support, which we covered as our first SaaS misconception, the associated impact can be major, and ultimately cause catastrophic issues downstream.
How does this misconception impact businesses?
If businesses opt to remove change management and training from their technology business case in order to meet a budget, a number of problems can surface.
Change management and training is really designed to drive high quality adoption of a new technology and the associated business processes. Adoption itself is the critical ingredient to achieving maximum value and benefits realization. After all, the higher the adoption the higher the ROI.
Businesses that remove change management often find themselves with new technology that is not being well adopted and as such isn’t delivering the intended value. This creates a frustration and lack of trust and engagement from colleagues. It is really hard to change perspectives and often software applications can be tainted.
In order to avoid this misconception, business and project leaders need to stand strong and stick to what they know to be true.
It is better to reduce scope rather than remove change and training.
And it is better to have reduced but well-used functionality instead of a full package of shelfware.
On this second point, vendors will mostly not want businesses to reduce module scope anyway, so could reduce their license costs or offer favorable terms, assuming that the desire and costs are not too far apart. But even if this isn’t an option, the consequences of cutting change budgets couldn’t be clearer.
If you don’t invest in supporting change, then your users and stakeholders may not understand your project or their new processes. And if your users and stakeholders don’t understand this, they’re far less likely to use the software, never mind use it correctly.
When viewed through this lens, it’s easy to see how this seemingly simple decision can make or break a project in a single cut.
“If our stakeholders don’t understand adoption and how we use the system, then it’s a lot harder for us to secure funding or support. When you get the full understanding and full usage, you start to gain buy in and word of mouth around the organization, which gives you a strong foothold.”
Rolls-Royce’s Global Head of HRIT Solutions, Simon Barker.
Learn how to maximize the value of your applications and bring certainty to your SaaS investments. Watch our on-demand webinar with Rolls-Royce here.
