There’s no other way to say it, businesses love apps.
Over the years, enterprise software has taken a backseat to specialized apps that are much more applicable to different teams, offer the opportunity to scale, and don’t cost a small fortune.
Over the last couple of years apps have grown almost exponentially, in fact, the number of software apps deployed has increased 68% over the past four years. This growth has contributed to the rise of numerous startups, spinoff teams at enterprise level companies, and countless mergers & acquisitions that have fueled silicon valley for at least a few more years.
While we can endlessly applaud business apps for their continued success, continuous growth, and undoubtedly boosting our productivity, they do carry some downside with them. For example, who keeps track of the apps? Who has access to what? How much do these apps cost? Which ones are actually used and by how many people?
It’s questions like these that inspired us to take a deeper look into the meteoric growth of business apps, how they’re being used, and what you can do in order to get a better grip of all the apps used in your business.
Overall, businesses are spending 50% more on business apps than the previous year and using 30% more, which is quite impressive. Taking a deeper look, how does your company stack up? On average, small businesses use 102 different apps, mid-market businesses use 137 apps, and enterprise-level companies have, on average, 288 different business apps in use across their businesses.
But what are the real takeaways?
There’s some bundling going on. With spending outpacing the adoption of new technology, companies are spending more on less, albeit less is still quite a bit more than the previous year.
Whether they’re adding more users, upgrading features, tacking on service plans, etc. companies are finding there’s more value in using more features from a smaller number of apps, rather than using a niche tool for. Every. Single. Problem.
Just like with any newly implemented tool, feature, or procedures, companies are dumping more than 30% of their apps every year. Seems shocking, right? Not so fast. Many, if not all, business apps grow, offering more and more features that crossover into the functions of other apps. The goal? Demonstrate enough flexibility in the workflow to gain market share for the most prominent business apps like Google Docs, Asana, Slack, Microsoft 365, and more.
It’s like the bargain bin at the supermarket: $2 here, $1 there, and the next thing you know, you’re spending 50 extra dollars on a bunch of stuff you didn’t need - the same thing happens with apps.
But how do we consider spending on a business tool as wasteful? A thing called “orphaned subscriptions”. Now, it’s not as dark as it sounds… unless you really hate wasting money -- then it’s about to get dark.
Orphaned subscriptions are when a subscription lapses due to the primary user or stakeholder either no longer using the platform and forgetting to cancel or leaving the company. This might not seem like a big issue, but it is. In 2019, orphaned subscriptions increased 100% year-over-year to nearly 3 subscriptions per company being forgotten about.
Start with the apps you don’t need.
But I need all of my apps!
That’s what we all think… but it isn’t true - whether it’s in our personal or professional lives. It’s true that most people need several apps, but rarely as many as we actually have downloaded on our devices.
When we look at that from a business perspective, it’s shown in the fact that 30% of a company’s business apps are canceled each year. With such a strong amount of turnover it’s often hard to keep track of what’s needed, what’s actually used, what should be replaced with a better option and what should be deleted all together.
Enjoying our digital advice? Read our “10 Best Digital Life Hacks” and learn how to make tech work in your favor, all the time.
Now that you’ve got some facts and figures, how do you keep it all on track?
Shameless plug? No, productivity plug.
Where else can you manage all of your apps, links, and team access from the same platform? Hint: There isn’t one, that’s why we made Desktop.com.
With Desktop.com, you’re able to declutter and organize your digital life (personal as well as professional) across all your devices. It’s easy to use, intuitive and it provides you with the overview you need to stay on top of it all. On a practical level, it allows you to create shareable desktops with your favorite apps, neatly organized by category, create folders for links and documents, tag your bookmarks to find them even easier, separate your personal and business resources, use Single-Sign-On, easily manage app access across teams or family members, and much much more.
Sitting on too many outdated tools? Find better ones and remove the ones you no longer use or need. Through Desktop.com’s ‘App Store’, users can easily explore, find, and add great apps to any of their Desktop’s from a growing selection of more than 1900 integrated apps.
To summarize: you need a strategy for how to manage your business apps. With so many incredibly helpful apps and resources currently out there, make sure that you review your current setup so that you can reap all the benefits of those instead of unknowingly wasting money on unused ones or let digital clutter eat away at your productivity.
