Who wants to spend 5 millions on a Financing solution (or even 1 !) ?
What would you do if you had 5 million euros to spend ?
The real value of financing software
What would you do if you had 5 million euros to spend ?
- Invite 20 friends for a flight on SpaceX ?
- Enable the United Nations to feed close to 20 000 children during a whole year ?
- Dine at a Michelin 3-star restaurant evey day for the next 34 years ?
- Provide over 55 000 AIDS patients with a treatment for a year ?
Well, on the wicked market of Financing Software, spending this much money to buy and implement lending and leasing software is not rare (and then paying 1 million euros each subsequent year for maintenance). Wow !!!
5 million euros is the equivalent of 50 man/years in France (where, only stating the obvious here, labor is not cheap). What could trigger the decision to spend this much money in leasing and lending software ? A psychological bias (more expensive is better) ? A wider functional coverage ? A lower Total Cost of ownership ? Better support ?
Let's list the reasons why more expensive is better
Your software is full of functionalities and innovations that no other company will ever have.
WRONG – in a packaged software most functionalities are shared amongst customers. And even if an innovative functionality is developed just for you, how long will it take for an agile competitor to develop the same one ?
Your software is exactly as you want it.
MAYBE – but when a software is highly configurable and built with a modern architecture, this should not come at a high price.
You will benefit from innovations continuously.
PROBABLY NOT – when asked to pay 5 million upfront, future improvements to the software are often not included in the maintenance. Talking about a win-lose situation...
The company you buy the software from is solid and will still be here 10 years from now.
WHO KNOWS ? – The very big customer bases of Kodak, Blockbuster or even Yahoo did not save them... And without going this far, software companies often decide to stop abruptly the maintenance of a product without consulting their customers first.
Because many major players on the market use a software, it appears to be the safest choice.
MAYBE – But then, why did you switch from Nokia to Blackberry, to iPhone, to Samsung ?
Come back soon for a new article about what we think is key to evaluate a Financing Software, and in the meanwhile make sure not to spend all your money at once 😉
September 2, 2021
