Retaining the Funds for a Tech Solution During Budget Cuts

Budget cuts have already arrived in the tech world, and are arriving soon across industries. It’s no longer a will-it, won’t-it situation. Unavoidably, businesses will take stock of tech, resources and other investments to trace every last penny.  

In such times, how do you let go of tools that you've built your workflows around? How do you fight to keep tools that help you prove the ROI of your work?

Keep reading to find out how to retain the budget for a tech solution when businesses are tightening their purse strings.

🧠 What the Experts Recommend:

• Track your current tools and its usage
• Rationalize the business case to keep the tech stack lean
• Evaluate the tool’s impact on revenue

#1 Track and identify which tools are mission critical

Senior Product Marketer at Prompt Therapy Solutions Inc, Ashley Guttuso, says that a spreadsheet helps her track the different tools, their costs and the projects in which they are used. Her pro tips?  

• Colour code projects according to their (potential) impact on revenue. 
• The goal is to make this data sortable by revenue/priority projects then see which tech in your stack is most critical.
• Add visual codes for the tools (eg: 💪) used in each project to indicate which ones are mission critical. 
• If you've chosen an emoji, 1 means it’s nice-to-have; 3 means it’s almost irreplaceable.

Doing this will help you make a business case for the line items you rely on most heavily for success.

Update the spreadsheet monthly to stay on the pulse of which tools you can’t live without. Remember, you don’t have to wait for someone to say, “It’s time for budget cuts.” See where money is being wasted and proactively decide when to let go. 

💡 Click here to get the template.

#2 Rationalize the business case to keep the tech stack lean

Founding member of recruitment automation startup Kula, Rohit Srivastav, shares how he rationalizes the business case for keeping your tech stack lean and mean.

1. Find out whether the tech can save you money over time
   
   ‍If you're able to cut down on manual labor, reduce downtime, or just streamline operations, that's all money back in your pocket. 

2. You don't really need the shiniest implementation as your first tool of choice
   
   ‍Show the proof of concept using a hacked-together system. For eg, Want DemandBase for analytics? Begin with a mix of custom audience and Factors.ai.

#3 Evaluate the tool’s impact on revenue 

‍Mark Kilens, CMO at Airmeet and co-founder of ClubPF, recommends assessing the tool’s impact on new revenue or to retain existing revenue. 

He recommends 2 ways to look out for this:

• First, use this framework by GTM partners to understand, articulate and show ROI. 
• Second, build a business case by partnering with internal teams like Finance, Sales or Customer Success to unveil the indirect impact of a particular tech. He says that sometimes the impact may not be as direct at first glance like, say, a decreased level of productivity of teammates. But on closer examination, you’ll figure out it does indeed affect revenue directly. 

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