The Hidden Cost of Tool Sprawl – and How to Consolidate Your Tech Stack

Consolidating workplace tech, or tackling what's been dubbed “tool sprawl”, is on the agenda for many organizations right now. We’re all fed up with having to jump between five different apps to complete a simple task, or needing to publish across multiple siloed platforms to reach each different audience.

Simply put, “tool sprawl” is the accumulation of a large number of platforms and channels that leads to an inefficient and costly digital workplace, and a frustrating and disengaging digital employee experience (DEX). It’s often a precursor to poor functionality, cyber vulnerabilities, and disappointing productivity levels. Nobody wins.

The antidote? A move toward a more streamlined, consolidated, and integrated digital workplace. Which means, eliminating overlapping or unnecessary tools.

Here, we explore the true costs of tool sprawl before jumping into three practical steps that will help you streamline and consolidate your internal tech stack. Let’s get to work.

The cost of tool sprawl

Tool sprawl doesn’t happen overnight. No organization goes from a neat, tidy, and consolidated digital workplace to suddenly having licenses for 200 different platforms and pieces of software. It’s something that happens incrementally, as more and more tools are procured in response to individual business needs, without reviewing the entire digital workplace more strategically. And while investing in new software is certainly not always a bad thing, there is a clear line between “just right” and “too much”. Goldilocks style.

So what’s the true cost of a disorganized and unconsolidated digital workplace? Tool sprawl has been coined the “invisible tax” on IT initiatives, causing operational friction and draining budgets. Ultimately, its negative impacts span three different areas: employee engagement and productivity, platform management, and financial demands. Let’s consider each one in a little more detail.

• Employee engagement and productivity impacts: Research from HBR shows that employees are jumping between different applications around 1,200 times every single day. This platform-hopping is an invisible killer of productivity, which is incredibly frustrating for people. Everybody wants to feel able to do their best work, so burnout and disengagement are never far away from a team that spends its time wrestling with inefficient platforms and unaligned processes.
• Platform management impacts: An outrageous amount of time across both internal comms (IC) and IT teams is being wasted maintaining multiple different tools and platforms. Every application requires time and expertise to manage and maintain properly, keeping content and information relevant and software up to date. Despite this investment of time, data shows that organizations are using less than half of their provisioned licenses.
• Financial impacts: There’s no other way to put it – tool sprawl drains budgets and hits an organization’s bottom line where it hurts. 87% of IT leaders say it’s having a “moderate to major” financial impact on their company, with up to a third of IT spend being completely wasted. Many IC budgets are also being obliterated by licenses for different pieces of software that aren’t used consistently, and don’t deliver the kind of ROI needed to justify the investment.

3 practical steps to streamline your internal tech stack

Now for the good news. Consolidating and streamlining the tools that make up your digital workplace brings a plethora of benefits, including a better employee experience, reduced cyber vulnerabilities, cost savings, and centralized analytics.

It’s a pretty compelling case. So it’s unsurprising that 95% of senior IT execs say they’re mobilizing plans to consolidate their workplace tech stack. The ultimate goal is to move from a chaotic cluster of platforms to a more streamlined, centralized, and efficient ecosystem.

Here are three steps that will help you bring that goal to life.

1. Audit and review

The first step is to carry out an honest assessment of your organization’s current tech usage. Start by auditing existing tools by building an understanding of their purpose, cost, and usage. This is your chance to paint a picture of what’s working and what’s not.

Consider your ROI for each tool: are you getting the value and functionality you expect? Or do you have three different platforms for publishing news articles and updates? Are policies duplicated between different tools for different sub-sections of the workforce? Does the process for logging a HR request involve navigating three different sites?

It’s also helpful to understand what devices employees are most commonly using to access which tools. Do the majority of the workforce use a mobile device to engage with content? Or are key IC platforms mainly being accessed via desktop devices? All of these insights will feed into steps two and three. 

2. Map workflows

After you’ve conducted your audit, it’s time to start mapping workflows. You’ve built a good understanding of how things currently stand. This next step is all about assessing your organization’s workplace tech needs and overarching objectives.

The aim is to identify which platforms are essential to meet the core needs of the business, and which ones are just getting in the way.

Mapping various common workflows will provide you with a visual representation of how work actually gets done, revealing any inefficiencies or opportunities to consolidate. Look again at how people are accessing different platforms, and when.

3. Consolidate tools

Step three is all about taking action and tackling your tool sprawl head-on. It’s time to generate a plan to eliminate any overlapping or unnecessary tools.

Start by making sure you understand the complete functionality of each core platform to identify opportunities to consolidate.

Investing in a modern intranet, for example, can consolidate the tools you use for important initiatives – such as surveys, sentiment analysis, and livestreaming – into a one-stop shop. For instance, B2B software company Keyloop saves €70k per year as Workvivo removes its need for separate translation and engagement technologies. Meanwhile, “the built-in secure survey, awards, events, and newsletter tools reduce the need for alternative stand-alone solutions,” according to Roísín Byrne, Employee Communications Manager at Irish bank AIB.

Combine and streamline, wherever possible. Look at the results from your audit, and create a forward-facing plan of action based on the requirements you highlighted when mapping workflows.

Tactically, always remember to take employees on the consolidation journey with you. Engage the support of “tech champions”, work closely with any employee forums, and keep line managers in the loop. The entire process is all about improving the digital employee experience and saving your people time, so make sure you communicate this clearly.

Consolidate your tech to tackle tool sprawl

Tool sprawl is taxing for your people, your culture, and your bottom line. Thankfully, auditing your tech stack, mapping workflows, and removing overlaps are actionable measures you can take to turn things around.

By setting your mind to tackling tool sprawl, you give your people fewer distractions and reduce their need to code-switch at work. 

That’s a big step toward delivering excellent employee experiences.