Recently, I spent a whole day working with different business software. My emotions went from “I can’t live without this” to “Who built this?”

Recently, I spent almost an entire day updating information in various business software tools. I completed these tasks on my laptop in my home office, feet up and coffee mug right next to me. Nothing special for an entrepreneur.

Nevertheless, I asked myself how work happened before business software. In that single day, my emotions towards business software fluctuated from “how did previous generations get anything done without that tool?” to “which idiot decided to buy that tool.”

Let’s follow the different emotions I went through that day.

My All-Time Favorite: Microsoft Excel

The day started great: I updated my cash flow plan for Yonder, the B2B SaaS company I co-founded, and thought through a few scenarios for my business. Because my cash flow plan is fully configurable, I could see each scenario’s effects on cash flow and profitability in real time. The tool behind my cash flow plan? Microsoft Excel. The cost of building such a cash flow plan? Just my time, as Microsoft Excel has become a commodity in the business world. 

I really can’t imagine how entrepreneurs budgeted and forecasted before Microsoft Excel. And I really don’t understand why people want expensive AI and SaaS tools for every little task when Excel does the trick for free.

Quite Good: Microsoft Word

Bing. An email from a customer with whom we’re working on updating our framework agreement. We’ve been working with this customer for five years, and the framework contract has grown to ten appendices in the meantime. Each appendix is a separate Microsoft Word document, and appendix no 10 is a self-declaration compliance questionnaire. Interestingly enough, that customer has sent us a compliance questionnaire just recently through a separate tool. I asked the procurement guys if we could just reference that questionnaire in the framework contract. The answer? No, please create a separate Microsoft Word document.

Microsoft Word is great because it’s easy to create documents. But it’s also easy to create a huge mess with all those Word documents, just because the tool is so easy to use.

Difficult: Project Planning Tools

Bing. Another email, this time related to my engagement as an active reserve officer in the Swiss Armed Forces.

The email instructed me to update some open tasks in the project planning tool we use to plan international exercises. I tried to do this right away, but I got an “access denied” message. That illustrates the core problem with all project planning tools: The project structure reflects the mind of the person who set it up. Over time, people are added to the project, convoluting the project structure because they bring in their own way of working. And suddenly, you have a task to do, but no access to the corresponding module in the project planning tool.

It’s 6 pm. Bing, Bing, Bing. At Yonder, we use JIRA to manage our development projects, and those projects grew over time, too. Around three years ago, I cleaned up the JIRA projects and set up an email automation, giving me a daily summary at 6 pm of all the JIRA tickets created in the last 24 hours for each of the three JIRA projects. And each day after 6 pm, I go through every single new ticket. People don’t always assign the correct epics and sprints, even after three years. Sometimes, they create beauty engineering tickets that have no priority. 

If you want a project structure and order to survive over years, you have to maintain constant housekeeping. If you don’t invest that time, your project tool will become messy and useless.

Horrible: SAP Ariba

Whilst looking through those new JIRA tickets before calling it a day, I got a notification in Microsoft Teams from one of our account managers. “Hey Tom, can you help me fill in this supplier questionnaire on SAP Ariba? I couldn’t answer all the questions myself.”

I shuddered. SAP Ariba is possibly the most horrible, user-unfriendly piece of business software I have ever used. Unfortunately, many of our customers use it to manage purchase orders, invoices, and supplier documentation.

Because I hate SAP Ariba so much and it was already past 6 pm, I decided to postpone this task to the next morning.

When I forced myself to get this task done the next morning, and I finally managed to get past the horribly user-unfriendly login procedure, a pop-up informed me that the response deadline had passed and I couldn’t answer the questionnaire.

I needed a second cup of coffee to get myself back on track for the day.

Conclusion

Business software is just a tool. It’s there to support your business. And yes, all business software has its flaws and shortcomings. That’s why you shouldn’t spend too much time evaluating new tools and replacing your existing tool landscape.

And remember, even with the best tools, you can create a huge mess if you don’t invest time in keeping those tools in order.

So why not have fewer tools and invest more time in housekeeping?