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Chief Revenue Officers are under immense pressure with each decision they make this year. In response to the current recession, companies are only spending on the most essential resources. We’ve heard from customers that many feel like they can only make one choice right now. Whatever they invest in needs to be the single biggest difference maker in terms of cost savings and revenue creation. 

Stakes that high only make decisions harder. We know that your stakeholders will evaluate tools based on the North Star metrics of the entire team. They will have a list of features and a pricing tier they are willing to pay. All of those are important, but there are other factors that can make the difference between another tool and a resource that adds to the power of your team. 

Here are three considerations to think about when evaluating which tools to invest in right now. 

1. How much will it change the current workflow of employees?

Across an organization, employees work from hundreds of workplace applications every day. Larger enterprises use as many as 600 applications every day. If that sounds like too many, most people agree with you. Many leaders feel their tech stack is bloated, especially considering that almost 50% of SaaS products aren’t adopted by the intended users. 

To get sign off on a new technology investment in the current economic climate, you need a plan for universal adoption and frequent use from your team. Often, that means picking a tool that does not disrupt their current processes or require a new behavior from them. If the new tool doesn’t integrate into their existing habits, people are much less likely to make the switch quickly. 

Instead of introducing a new place for employees to do their work, consider solutions that integrate with the essential applications they use every day. Browser-based applications, for example, are intuitive, based on existing workflow, and require very little action from individual users. Similarly, integrations into chat apps, like Slack, or applications like Google Docs, also get adopted quickly by providing value immediately. 

When making your investment decisions, remember to consider the implementation and change management. When your team needs to move fast and show ROI quickly, investing in a solution that will disrupt your workflow with complicated onboarding may not be the right choice right now. 

2. Does it save costs or increase revenue? 

While most leaders understand that a well-resourced team will be more productive, the truth is, right now, everyone will be asked to do more with less. In order to ensure the longevity of the company, executives need to consider if a new resource saves on cost or increases revenue. Unless they can see a direct tie to the bottom line, the answer will likely be no. 

Before you submit a request to invest in a new technology, make sure you can prove the ways it will either save costs or increase revenue, as well as how long it will take to see those changes to the bottom line. The best technologies will do both. However, figure out which one is the bigger concern for your executives. For customer success teams, cost savings is usually a much bigger priority. On the other hand, sales teams are focused on generating revenue. 

When deciding on a single technology investment, it should align with the top priority of your organization, while also impacting the North Star metrics of the entire company. Make sure that you can draw a straight line from the technology to that metric before making this critical decision. 

3. What is the quality of the data you’re getting? 

The last consideration that needs to be part of your purchase decision is the quality of data the new tool provides. At this point, almost every workplace tool provides some level of data that teams can use to improve processes, increase productivity, and help the organization reach its goals. 

But not all data is created equal. 

Collecting data for the sake of it is both tedious and confusing. More information doesn’t help if you don’t have the right context for that data or a plan for taking action with what you see. Before picking the single tool that your team wants to invest in this year, consider what information and insights you can pull from the platform. Is that information collected already? Is it displayed in a way that teams across multiple disciplines can understand? Do the insights pulled from that data directly impact your goals to be more effective as an organization? 

As you make your evaluations, think beyond the features inside the platform. Also evaluate the data it will provide you and how that will help you reach your goals. That extra layer of scrutiny will ensure that you are making a much smarter investment. 

See how Retain.ai serves each of these considerations

To see how Retain.ai answers each of these questions, schedule a demo with our team today. We’ll show you how we can help you save on spending, increase productivity, and simplify your team's workflow in a matter of weeks. Let’s chat!