Does your business spend money on software wisely?

For fun, I asked ChatGPT, “What are the top five motivations for a business to spend money?” Seconds later, ChatGPT came back with its answer. The top five were: “Operational Necessity”, “Revenue Generation and Growth”, “Efficiency and Productivity Improvements”, “Staying Competitive”, and “Risk Management and Compliance”. I don’t think those five motivations are particularly revelatory or surprising, but let’s look at how they apply to the software you buy, use or consider.

Overview of this blog article

This blog article is broken into three sections. Firstly, I will discuss the five motivations delivered by ChatGPT. The second section will look at the hidden benefits of some software and, conversely, the disadvantages and hidden costs of some software. Finally, I will apply all these findings to MRDCL, our leading data management, data analysis and reporting engine.

Part 1: The five business motivations applied to software

  a. Operational Necessity

Let’s start by stating the obvious: for most market research and insights businesses to survive, they need software. This may be to collect data, manage data, analyse data, report data, deliver data, or, perhaps, to produce some specialised deliverable. The calibre or sophistication of the software will be dependent on needs. Whether a business buys ‘good enough’ software or software that allows room for growth may depend on whether the company offers a standard service/type of work or seeks to gain business from a wide or increasing range of clients. Buying ‘good enough’ software can be a good decision and save money, although it comes with one big caveat. It’s vital to ensure that it is easy (and I mean easy) to move surveys and data to superior software if the need arises in the future; some software likes to trap you in, making change difficult.

  b. Revenue Generation and Growth

‘Operational Necessity’ was somewhat obvious, but what about ‘Revenue Generation and Growth’? This motivation seems equally apparent, but I think there is more to it. If you are using software that stunts growth, doesn’t come with economies of scale or doesn’t meet the needs of potential new business in terms of either growth or profitability, something is wrong. I have seen many examples of this over the years. I recall a company being excited about winning a major complex tracking study but discovering that the software they used to manage and analyse the data was woefully inadequate and meant massive inefficiencies. I recall a company winning a major online survey and discovering the software they used for online data collection offered no economies of scale, charging more or less the same rate per interview for 50,000 completes per year as 5,000. There are numerous other examples where software can stop, hold back or fail to produce the expected profits when there is growth potential.

  c. Efficiency and Productivity

We’re in an age where automation (or semi-automation) and productivity are taken for granted. Software products are often good at giving the appearance of making things easy, but some software offers real productivity gains, while other products can be laborious to use. Many software vendors may focus on convincing sales demonstrations that make you buy the software using aesthetically pleasing software. Aesthetically pleasing is good, but it is not the same as efficient and productive. The sorts of things that I think are important when considering efficiency and productivity are questions like:

• How easy is it to repeat a similar survey or identical task?
• Is manipulating the data in any way overly time-consuming or prone to error?
• How easy is it to make changes to questionnaires, analysis or any other component of the process?
• Does the software have any advanced tools that I can utilise for complex or laborious tasks?
• Are there shortcuts to getting an overview of my data with one or two clicks?
• Is something slightly more complex than usual impossible or more difficult than you might reasonably expect?

There are more questions of this type, but efficiency and productivity are often neglected. If one product needs a team of five people and another needs a team of three to carry out the same work, these costs are significant and usually more important than the cost of the software itself.

  d. Staying Competitive

This follows on from ‘Revenue Generation and Growth’ and ‘Efficiency and Productivity’, but ChatGPT is right to make this a separate topic. Staying competitive as a business means responding successfully to market changes. Market research has changed rapidly in recent years, leading to winners and losers. To remain competitive, you need software suppliers with a track record of staying competitive. This is not just in terms of pricing but responding to changing market demands. Over the last ten to fifteen years, there have been demands to move to online research predominantly, a greater focus on productivity as labour costs rise worldwide, increasing automation of insights and the advent of AI, plus many other changes. Some software vendors have responded well to this; others offer nothing new. You need software suppliers that meet market demands, especially as changes often come quickly.

  e. Risk Management and Compliance

There’s not much to add on this topic, but good software products can reduce your business risks as discussed previously. Compliance and security issues are generally well understood by most software vendors. However, looking at the risk of being attached to a particular software product is not explored enough until it’s too late. So, risk assessments are recommended.

Part 2: Hidden Benefits, Disadvantages and Hidden Costs

Below are some examples of benefits, disadvantages and hidden costs. It is not a complete list, but some ideas to help you appraise software more objectively.

• Using software is not like other familiar tasks. You might estimate that writing a report on a survey will take two days. In reality, it might take between one and half days and two and half days, i.e. 25% more or less. Now, let’s look at a complex data management task for a tracking study. You might estimate that it takes one day. However, in one software product, it might take one hour; in another it might take a week. Indeed, I helped a client reduce the time they spent on a major tracking study from 30 days per month to just over one day per month when they converted to our software. This is significant.
• We’ve all done it, but I never like reinventing the wheel. I like software that gives me tools to repeat identical tasks quickly. If something is laborious (and prone to error), I want a way to automate it. Good software allows this.
• The more users and use you make of a software product, the cheaper each unit should become – this may be the cost per user, the cost per interview or some other measure. I’m astounded some of the low-cost products give you tempting introductory offers, which work out highly expensive once you have a bigger user base or are handling more projects.
• The cost of training is often underestimated when taking on a new product. I have seen companies insist on expensive training courses even to get started. If the software has any complexities, you should expect good video tutorials explaining how to carry out tasks. I don’t mean quick ‘snappy’ videos lasting one minute that are sales videos saying how easy it is – I mean videos that explain in sufficient detail how to perform tasks. Further, any good software vendor should have a proven onboarding programme at a low cost or no cost.
• Data communcation is increasingly important in business generally, not just market research. Only use products that communicate well (and easily) with other systems. We are no longer in a world where one size fits all; research deliverables often vary from project to project. Therefore, you need software that can transfer data seamlessly to other systems.

Part 3: How does MRDCL stack up?

MRDCL is an established data management, survey analysis and reporting platform. It is mostly driven by a scripting language, giving it more power than any other product in its class. It means there is more learning, but the benefits are enormous. Also, don’t ignore the ‘data management’ part of MRDCL, as managing the data from projects so that you can generate reports, communicate with other systems, generate crosstabs, etc., is increasingly important in the insights business. But let’s appraise how MRDCL stacks up against the five motivations and the five examples of hidden benefits, disadvantages and costs.

Operational Necessity 

If you handle anything other than a small number or surveys or mostly customer feedback-type surveys, MRDCL will offer you efficiencies. Operational necessity? Possibly not, as there are unarguably other products that can handle some projects as well as MRDCL. However, MRDCL will not run out of steam or suddenly be inefficient when things are more complex, non-standard or even simple but repetitive. This can apply to the survey data, the analysis or processes you wish to carry out.

Revenue Generation and Growth

MRDCL offers this in abundance. There is no project too big or too complex for MRDCL – at least, to our knowledge. MRDCL will enable you to take on the largest or most complex projects – or, indeed, projects that are simpler but involve a high volume of repetitive outputs. MRDCL will help you with Revenue Generation and Growth time after time.

Efficiency and Productivity

MRDCL has been designed with these factors at its core. MRDCL has tools to build templates, automate processes and allow customisation to meet your business needs. No other product has this level of flexibility. Anecdotally, clients report improved staff efficiency and reduced errors when they use MRDCL.

Staying Competitive

MRDCL has a track record of responding to market needs. Around 2000, we streamlined MRDCL to handle online surveys more efficiently. Then, we put in a bunch of tools to improve productivity as labour costs increased worldwide. Automation tools were added in the 2010s so that multiple reports and outputs could be generated, and now we are adding AI components to help with reporting and project management. We are committed to responding to market needs so our customers can remain competitive.

Risk Management and Compliance

Less relevant, perhaps, but MRDCL has ensured that customers can remain agile to changing market needs, thus reducing risk to their businesses.

Hidden Benefits, Disadvantages and Hidden Costs

In all those examples, MRDCL scored highly – the examples are mostly taken from projects involving MRDCL customers. We take the onboarding and training process very seriously and have a proven programme, which means that it is free to get trained to use MRDCL. Our video library is full of detailed explanations of how to get the most from our software, and we are always available to offer advice.

Is it time to explore MRDCL’s benefits?