Go through some convincing reasons why you should get into fewer business tools and why companies should not invest in business tools.
While in business school, we had a spreadsheet outlining all the tools we were using to manage our campaigns. The list is endless, with several dedicated tools for tasks like time tracking, file management, reporting, project management, and others. The tools were good in their way but didn't make our job any easier.
Jumping on to the scenarios in small/medium companies, almost 74% of project managers use between two and five tools, and 95% use two or more. There is no doubt that we have more apps and tools at our disposal today than ever before. Is it even doing any good?
There are chances that your business will get into grabbing many of them. But it can be a nightmare if you don’t have the right tools, and if you are using too many, you are probably taking a lot of extra work.
Here are some convincing reasons why you should get into fewer business tools.
1. Unproductive Time
Much of the time gets wasted in managing the tools than actually doing the things. It can be confusing and difficult to get things done.
Team members usually need to switch between tools to handle specific problems with different rules. As the tools will demand your constant attention, it is probably going to spoil your workflow.
2. Increased Company’s Expense
According to a report by Siftery, the top companies, on average, uses 37 different tools or software platforms to run their day-to-day operations. With the need for so many services, the need for tools is growing.
But the costs as well grow as fast as the tools. Instagram uses around 54 products, and the monthly costs of using these many products add up to thousands of dollars.
Eventually, most businesses fail because they fail to meet the budget requirements and suffer from a lack of profitability.
3. Complex Process
Switching between tools is time-consuming and makes the whole planned workflow complex. Also, integrating them with third-party apps also messes up things.
It becomes a lot of struggle to look for information regarding the projects, leading to scattered data and extra work. With some tools at hand, you can have everything in one place without investing in any other tool.
4. Waste of Energy and Efforts
Too many business tools will always be distracting for the users. They will end up wasting too much energy on organizing various tools. If all the efforts are given to a single software, teams can explore better and make things much easier.
Companies using too many tools without even realizing it has to struggle to get informative reports. Also, a lot of energy is wasted in having a clear overview to gather the data from different tools and software. You can prevent these by going through various project management courses.
5. Synchronization is a Problem
Synchronizing work will always be a problem when you are using too much software. If you want to simplify your work process, getting everything done on a single system is best.
Prioritizing on one, tracking on another, and getting reports on another will make it difficult at the end of the day. You will be more at peace with your work management with one or two tools for your projects.
A perfect solution is to have cloud-based project management software. It is always a better way with one software. Everything will be balanced up related to projects and your teams.
Here’s what all you can do on a single project management software?
Track progress of work, identify blockers and collaborate on projects
Keep projects organized and hit deadlines
Gather ‘round and talk for casual conversation, quick Q&As, sharing links and fast riffs
Write to-dos and assign them to multiple people
Agile management and integration with other tools
Reports on work happening between multiple projects
Manage workflows and make templates for recurring work
Team and project calendars to know who is working on what and by when
Your time machine to set timelines
All the records are in one place with fewer meetings, emails and less busy work
These are some of the most important reasons why you want to rely on a project management tool for your projects. Utilizing the latest tools like Mavenlink, ProofHub, and many more will maximize the performance of your project teams.
The whole workflow becomes improved as people become capable of collaborating on a variety of tasks. This leads to a significant improvement in productivity, which leads to higher profits in the business world.
High quality in a short time-frame that’s what businesses want to achieve. Get along with project management software to get this done.
Vartika Kashyap is the Marketing Manager at ProofHub and has been one of the LinkedIn Top Voices in 2017. Her articles are inspired by office situations and work-related events. She likes to write about productivity, team building, work culture, leadership, entrepreneurship among others and contributing to a better workplace is what makes her click.