(This article was updated on Aug, 22nd, 2024)
There’s a hidden enemy lurking in your office.
It’s so subtle. So quiet. So seemingly smart, you won’t recognize it as an enemy but it’s in front of you every moment of your working day.
It’s called app congestion.
And it’s creating an unholy traffic jam in your ability to respond quickly to clients.
And the hidden cost is shocking
The average small business uses over 100 different applications to run its operation.
Think that too many to believe?
Stop now and count in your head the systems you --as a promo professional-- use every day:
- email
- instant messaging, text, slack
- calculator apps
- product search tools
- presentation tools
- spreadsheets
- word docs (Google drive, Microsoft)
- sales orders
- supplier websites
- accounting
- artwork programs (like Adobe, Canva)
- marketing programs (email, CRM)
- order management system
- quoting process
- etc.
Now, magnify those apps times the number of colleagues in your business (designers, accounting, sales, support).
See what I mean?
App congestion is the new traffic jam. One report by Pega revealed that by studying over 5 million hours of live desktop activity, employees switched between 35 job-critical applications more than 1100 times a day. Pega dubbed it the “virtual swivel chair.”
Context switching -aggravated by app overload- is killing your creativity and slowing sales.
Cal Newport called it attention residue: when you switch from one app or activity to another, your full attention doesn’t immediately follow, “a residue of your attention remains stuck thinking about the original task.”
Context switching and app congestion are costing you and your team upwards of 80% of their productivity loss a day. That’s not efficiency, that’s insanity.
In our industry it’s not just a problem, it’s a raging inferno that slows sales.
We already have a complex supply chain with a million products and a billion variables, add to it the complexity we create with too many bolt-on tools we use to run our business and you’ve got a Frankenstein system for your company’s engine: It moves slow, groans loudly, and requires lots and lots of oiling to make it work.
But it’s not just hidden costs, actual costs are outrageous Too
As a consumer, consider how many apps and digital services do you sign up for that once sounded cool but you’ve long since abandoned. I recently saw a recipe that I wanted from the NYTimes and thought, “it’s only $4.99 a month for the recipe app and I could use a recipe-saving service, so why not?”
And that’s how it happens. That small decision adds up to a behavior pattern that results in a lot of wasteful spending. The average consumer (ie, you and me) spends $237 a month on apps, games, digital newspaper and magazine subscriptions, meal services, entertainment, and more. How many times have you looked at your bank statement and thought: I’ve got to cancel that subscription.
And this consumer behavior bleeds over into our business behavior. While the average consumer spends nearly $3,000 annually on these services, the average company wastes around $135,000 annually on software tools they don’t really need or tools they vastly underutilize.
The solution? Consolidate the number of tools that power your business to simplify your business.
As the leader of your org, it’s crucial that you give your team the best-in-class tools to do their job, but that you also don’t simultaneously burden them with so many tools that you’re inadvertently giving them a part-time job ... learning 20 different tools.
So, the magic question to ask when you consider the software that powers your ops is: Will it simplify your world?
