Over the last ten years, I have worked on software implementations, software recoveries, process redesigns, vendor evaluations, integration projects and operational transformations. I’ve sat through well over a hundred demonstrations of HR, payroll, recruitment, safety, workforce management and business systems.
And despite different industries, different organisations and different software vendors, I continue to see the same cycle play out over and over again.
- An organisation identifies a problem. It might be recruitment, onboarding, payroll, performance management, compliance, learning management or workforce planning. Someone concludes that the issue is the current system, so the search begins for a new one.
- The business case is developed.
- The budget is approved.
- The demonstrations are impressive.
- The vendor tells you everything you want to hear.
- The implementation begins.
And that’s where the first problem appears.
Rather than the software adapting to the organisation, the organisation starts adapting to the software.
Processes that have worked for years are suddenly changed to fit the system configuration. Approval paths are modified. Forms are redesigned. Reporting structures are altered. Users are told they need to “embrace best practice” which often means accepting the way the software was designed rather than how the business actually operates.
Then comes the second problem.
The organisation realises that the functionality they believed was included isn’t quite what they expected.
To achieve the desired outcome they need:
- Additional modules
- Extra licences
- Third-party integrations
- Custom development
- Professional services
- Additional consulting support
Suddenly the original budget is under pressure.
The implementation timeline starts slipping.
The scope grows.
The compromises begin.
- “What if we just do it this way instead?”
- “Can we manage that outside the system?”
- “We’ll deal with that in phase two.”
- “We can always use a spreadsheet.”
Before long, the organisation goes live with something that looks different to what they originally envisaged. It delivers some benefits, solves a few problems and creates a few new ones.
Eventually people adapt.
Until they don’t.
A few years later someone becomes convinced there is something better available.
The cycle starts again.
Armed with a wish list, the organisation heads back to the market.
Interestingly, the wish list is rarely hundreds of requirements long. In most cases it consists of six to ten key frustrations.
Six to ten things that, if fixed, would make a significant difference.
So begins another round of:
- Vendor demonstrations
- Requests for information
- Requests for quotation
- Expressions of interest
- Reference checks
- Business cases
- Executive approvals
Eventually the organisation selects one of three shortlisted vendors and decides to make the change.
But here is the question that is rarely asked:
Does the new system still do all the things our current system does well?
What I see repeatedly is that organisations become so focused on solving the six to ten frustrations that they forget to evaluate the hundreds of things their existing system already handles successfully.
The assumption becomes:
“The new system will do everything the old one did, plus these additional things.”
Unfortunately, that’s rarely the reality.
The new platform often solves some problems while recreating others.
The cycle repeats.
And meanwhile, the software landscape continues to grow.
Most organisations now have:
- An HRIS
- A Payroll System
- A Learning Management System
- A Safety System
- A CRM
- A Finance System
- Power BI
- SharePoint
- Multiple shared drives
- Countless spreadsheets
Yet despite all this technology, employees still spend enormous amounts of time manually transferring information between systems.
Why?
Because most SaaS products are designed to solve a specific functional problem exceptionally well.
They rarely solve end-to-end business processes.
When the gaps appear, organisations purchase another product to fill the gap.
- That creates another data source.
- Another integration.
- Another login.
- Another licensing agreement.
- Another implementation project.
Eventually the users become the integration engine.
- They export reports.
- They update spreadsheets.
- They copy and paste data.
- They reconcile inconsistencies.
- They manually connect systems that were never designed to work together.
The organisation ends up owning more software than ever before, yet still struggles to gain a single, trusted view of its operations.
The challenge is not usually that the software is bad.
The challenge is that businesses are buying solutions to individual problems instead of creating an ecosystem that works together.
This is where I believe many organisations need to start thinking differently.
Rather than continually replacing systems, perhaps the better question is:
How do we make the systems we already own work together?
Instead of implementing another application, relying on integrations (which are usually limited, what if there was an intelligence layer that sat across all existing systems?
A platform that could orchestrate workflows, consolidate information, automate approvals, provide insights and connect data from multiple sources without forcing the organisation to start another large-scale replacement project.
That is where Curator IQ takes a different approach.
Rather than becoming another silo, Curator IQ is designed to sit across existing systems and connect them. It acts as an operational intelligence layer that brings together data, workflows, approvals, compliance, reporting and business logic from across the organisation.
Because after watching organisations repeat the SaaS purchasing cycle for more than a decade, I’ve come to one conclusion:
The problem is rarely a lack of software.
The problem is that businesses keep buying more software when what they really need is a way to make everything they already have work together.