How to Optimize ROI of Existing Software Suite?

Understand how to assess your software development choices better

Pratik Mistry
4 min readNov 28, 2022
Photo by Stephen Dawson on Unsplash

If you are in the C-suite of your company, like me, you are most likely wondering how investing in technology can impact your ROI. Especially after the pandemic when the market is growing from the cold thaw. If you want to see a significant leap in your business growth, you need to make decisions on investments that are critical yet necessary to opt for, such as effective software solutions.

It can be, however, challenging to describe the economic effect of those investments because calculating the ROI offers of those efforts can be more complex.

This article aims to help you better understand how to assess your technological choices and gauge their effects on your business.

What is The Ultimate Impact of Calculating the ROI of Your Software Expenditures?

ROI is the financial measurement. It determines how your company is performing and what it is delivering. Your goal should be generating more revenue than your investments. If you are investing x amount of money in software development services, your profit should be more than x.

Let’s understand how you can calculate your firm’s ROI:

  • Justify the need for more product development.
  • Analyze the entire ownership costs in comparison to your long-term returns.
  • Enables you to express to your clients the ROI being produced from these investments in a clear and concise manner, either through efficiency or quantitatively.

The Software Determines Your ROI

How you assess ROI will depend on the kind of software you’re creating for your business. Let’s understand the two basic types.

1. Business Management Software

These software initiatives are made to enhance internal corporate procedures and streamline teamwork. Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Asana are a few examples.

List all the areas where you believe this program can be used to increase income, decrease costs, or enhance customer service. Different ROI calculator factors are utilized to get you pondering about what you expect to gain because every organization has different workflows.

2. SaaS Software

It refers to ‘software as a service.’ That says most of its functions as well. Software is the primary source of income for SaaS companies, who create it to serve a specific consumer. Monthly or yearly recurring revenue subscription terms will be used to calculate the ROI.

Improve Software ROI by Combining Innovation and Customer Satisfaction

It goes without saying that satisfied consumers are excellent for business. The customer is king, admittedly! However, managing customer satisfaction while maximizing software ROI is a tricky art. How, then, do you accomplish both?

Here are a few strategies for combining excellent customer experience and agility to increase your ROI.

1. Role of Customers in Product Innovation

Customers ultimately determine if your software products are successful or unsuccessful. Incorporating customer feedback while inventing is equally as important as paying attention to growing sales, profits, and customer retention levels.

Customers frequently want quick innovation, regardless of the software development methodology used to achieve it. They anticipate that you will pay attention to their requests, fully comprehend them, and meet or exceed their expectations.

Keep in mind that success is a result of continual, substantial progress, and postponing the product’s delivery in an effort to achieve perfection might be expensive.

2. Project Completion Time and Rate

But a good project does not always result in a high return on investment. Your cash flow would require you to take a close look at the method you were using to address the client’s wants.

For instance, if a customer wanted a specific research project in Q1 but you couldn’t provide it until Q3 of the next year, or you supplied innovations that were out of step with their actual needs. It’s challenging to determine ROI when projects have such lengthy timelines! On the contrary, cost savings might make a bad product look successful.

3. Project Graphs and Strategies

You’re definitely asking yourself one of two questions now as you look at financial data: “How can I optimize software ROI quickly?” other divisions, or “How do I repeat this achievement?” The best advice we can give is to research the software innovation triumphs or failures your business has had, whether they were in your division or a different one. Copy them, but be creative in your duplication, so it stands out as unique.

4. Benefits of Partner Programs

You can include your modest computer programs into your current processes by utilizing the comprehensive partner programs that the majority, although not all, of the larger software providers offer. Consider that you have a mid-sized e-commerce website and are a Synergy CRM client.

Your website is hosted by Etsy, while Zendesk is used for customer support. By connecting your apps, you can make the most of their combined benefits and do away with silos. Check how well any new program integrates with the technologies you already use before committing.

Conclusion

The process of expanding your software system is active and continual. Although managing your budget nearly constantly is necessary to maximize your ROI, once you know where your money is going, you can cut the slack.

Keep in mind you get the personnel infrastructure to help with the upkeep of your SaaS if you want to maximize the return on your investment over the medium-haul. You can avoid duplication by regularly auditing the tools you have available, particularly across company operations — work to comprehend the restrictions on the customizability of your software, and give preference to programs that provide actionable insights.

Last but not least, as a C-suite of your firm, be open to suggestions and adaptable as your team’s needs change.

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Pratik Mistry

Technologist and Executive Vice-President at www.radixweb.com with a track record of growing revenues and enabling value-based partnerships to customers.