As Coronavirus swept the world, businesses were forced to reconfigure and enable their employees to work from home. A number of companies offered support for business during this difficult time, with free access to otherwise paid software and services.
Some examples of this are:
As the world gets Coronavirus under control, much of the world are considering returning to some level of normality. This means it’s now decision time for a lot of businesses, as the free offerings available during the peak of COVID-19 wrap-up and the invoices start.
If you’ve signed up your business to a free service that works well and the price is affordable going forward, then you’re in a good spot. Covid essentially shortened the decision making process in acquiring a service to improve your business.
If however, you signed up your business to a service that the organisation now relies on, without a business up and without a budget, then you’re in a world of hurt.
Unwinding things that people have grown to rely on, especially after making it through the learning curve, is not going to be popular.
Evaluating software and services is usually complex, as moving platforms is expensive, not due to licensing, but in terms of human effort in training.
It’s an awkward position that many businesses will now find themselves in as they have to find the money to maintain more flexible working arrangements.
At the end of the day, if your business now relies on a new communication platform like Microsoft Teams or Zoom, a new file sharing platform like Citrix ShareFile or Box.net, or a digitally signature service like Adobe Sign or Docusign, then your business is likely better off because of it. In a post-COVID world, it likely will never make sense to go back to the way things were before.
If your business is yielding benefits from the new services implemented during Coronavirs, then the retroactive business case will be even easier to write. Essentially you got 12 months of service for the price of 6 months.
Of course the flipside is that you tried something for free, maybe it didn’t work so well and you can now look migrating away if the first thing you chose, wasn’t the best thing for your business.
