Toss or Fix Your Tech Stack? - Part 5

Criteria #5, Understanding the number of tools you have and how they’re being used - and #6, Does the tool have intrinsic value in your organization’s infrastructure or is it used by an individual?

With Criteria #5, regarding the actual cost of things, one of the biggest pills we had to swallow was that we didn’t know what we were paying for at one point in time. How and why did we have a Stamps.com membership? Either way, we were paying for it, and there was zero value in it.?

This was a good gut check for us, having to go through accounting to see what we were paying for. As you can imagine, we tossed those platforms and subscriptions we weren’t aware of.?

When was the last time your organization really itemized the cost centers around your tech stack? If you haven’t done so recently, you might want to take a look. Let me know in the comments below what recurring payment surprised you!

Stemming from the cost center discussion, for criteria #6, is the tool being used company-wide or by an individual - and does that matter from a cost center? I thought about this as we have a diverse team of seasoned professionals at MRM who come from various professional backgrounds with tool preferences.?

If a tool was a massive part of an individual’s work style and how they operated, we kept it, even if it was only utilized by 1 person on the team. Organizationally, we decided to consolidate items like task management tools into our existing HubSpot instance as we do most of our work there already, and it was one less step for checking items off our list (if you’re interested in doing this too, reach out!).

What are your thoughts on tools at the individual vs. organizational level? Have you found that 1 platform for the greater good has been more impactful than letting individuals pick what works for them? Let us know in the comments below!