When organizations buy a shiny new piece of software, attention is typically focused on the benefits: streamlined business processes, improved productivity, automation, better security, faster time-to-market, digital transformation.
The other side of the cost/benefit equation — what the software will cost the organization, and not just sticker price — may not be as captivating when it comes to achieving approval for a software purchase, but it’s just as vital in determining the expected return on any enterprise software investment. After all, if you can’t accurately forecast or calculate the total cost of a software implementation over the full lifecycle of the product, you have no foundation on which to make sound IT decisions, purchasing or otherwise.