Strategic savings: how all-in-one platforms lead to budget success

Whatever their field of activity, companies today are undergoing unprecedented transformations. In this uncertain context, it is becoming necessary for their managers to strengthen their systems and data security, and to better control and optimize their budgets.

In fact, they are now looking for innovative solutions to optimize their budgets, while maintaining their agility and competitiveness in the market. The tech sector is obviously leading the way, with no less than 84% of leaders forecasting an increase in their budget dedicated to technology in 2024 (Forrester). But other sectors are not to be outdone either.

One technology that is attracting particular attention is the adoption of all-in-one platforms. These solutions are designed to centralize and streamline operations, improve collaboration between departments and teams, ensure system compliance, and provide a solid foundation for growth and innovation. They are essential for achieving operational excellence and maintaining a competitive edge in today's dynamic business environment.

The main advantage of a well-implemented platform, in tune with your organization, is that it enables you to achieve multiple level economies.

What are the benefits of such a platform, and what budget cuts will it enable you to make? Let's find out!

Why do companies struggle to optimize their budgets?

According to Forrester, many managers sometimes invest in solutions without realizing that the functionality they're looking for is already present in their existing tools. There are therefore real stakes in adjusting your budget by gathering information directly from the field (internal audit, survey, etc.).

Even under these conditions, you may be faced with several difficulties:

• The ever-increasing complexity of operations as your company grows. New geographical areas and markets to take into account, but also new teams or sub-teams, the implementation of new internal processes; all this lead to a need for visibility and additional investments that are not always optimized over time.
• Dispersal of data between numerous users, departments or local systems. Often a consequence of the previous point, the difficulty of centralizing a company's data makes it all the more laborious to obtain a clear overview, for accurate decision-making on budget management.
• The inefficiency of certain processes or workflows, due to non-existent integrations with all corporate systems (for example, the need to connect to several tools in parallel instead of using SSO).
• Competitive pressure, which makes it impossible to put everything on hold and take the time to completely rethink your operations. Companies must continue to deliver quality to remain competitive. So, what works today to achieve this is often the preferred solution, and too bad if it represents a cost that could be reduced with a new solution, but to which teams would have to be trained and re-acclimatized.

Faced with these many challenges, all-in-one platforms have one big advantage: they can address them all at once. They simplify work at the operational level, centralize your data in a single space, and thus enable you to gain efficiency without compromising on quality. Let's take a look at how they make this possible.

How do all-in-one platforms work?

What are all-in-one platforms?

As we saw earlier, all-in-one platforms are comprehensive software solutions, offering a wide range of functions needed to manage a large-scale organization. But more concretely, what does this mean for the business?

• A unified, all-in-one system to manage the various business units. If necessary, this also includes separate integrated modules for each function: finance, human resources, customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain, etc., and the management of regulated data within the framework of your company's policies and tools. 
• Centralized information: as mentioned above, all-in-one platforms bring together all key data in a single online space, making it accessible anytime and from anywhere, in conditions that are secure and aligned with your organization.  
• Extensive customization possibilities: as this type of solution is expected to integrate fully with your in-house system, they are generally designed to be flexible enough to adapt to your unique needs.
• Scalability: they are designed to keep pace with your transformations and restructurings, so you don't have to overhaul your system every time.

How do you deploy an all-in-one platform?

It should also be pointed out that the implementation of such a platform can vary considerably from one organization to another. It depends on factors such as company size, industry sector, existing systems and strategic objectives.

Particularly for large structures, it may therefore involve a gradual roll-out, starting with one department or function, then extending to other areas as and when required.

This type of deployment is recommended above all to test the solution in real conditions on a reduced scale, and to evaluate all the overall impact on team adoption... and on your budget! We'll come back to this.

So now's the time to take a closer look at the kind of savings you're going to make in the short, medium and long term by exploiting your all-in-one platform to its full potential.

6 ways to make budget savings with an all-in-one platform

1. Streamline your operations and tools

To cope with an environment where workflows and exchanges are becoming ever more complex, and to avoid unnecessary expenditure, you need to be able to identify redundant processes in your operation, and automate as many low-value-added tasks as possible.

And that's precisely what an all-in-one platform is for! By unifying your systems internally, you can be sure you won't be continually investing in duplicate tools. Focus on complementing your own tools, and make sure they're aligned and integrated with new ways of working. It's the details that can often make all the difference!

All the functionalities you and your businesses need are then linked to the platform, which also considerably facilitates the financial management of your application portfolio.

What's more, many all-in-one platforms offer automation options: data entry, CRM, reporting, etc. Your teams can then concentrate on higher value-added tasks, which boosts their productivity and reduces the costs associated with carrying out less important tasks manually.

2. Identify areas for cost reduction

If you ensure that you act on several fronts in parallel, the benefits of your platform and your ultimate gains will be multiplied. From the outset, identify the pillars on which you will focus your actions thanks to your solution. For example

• Resource optimization: simplify the allocation and use of your resources, ensuring that they are allocated where they are most needed.
• Process optimization: streamline your workflows and operational processes to increase overall efficiency and reduce redundancies.
• Collaboration optimization: facilitate team and individual interactions, especially in distributed work environments.

3. Be flexible by scaling up

As we've seen, the ability to evolve at the pace of your organization is the foundation of a successful all-in-one platform.

Imagine the investment it would represent not only to have to adapt to the impact of change itself on your projects and teams, but also to realize that the entire system supporting your collaboration is out of sync, and to have to rethink it in parallel...

Let's take the example of a French company looking to expand in India. To achieve this, its managers have recruited local teams, but find that some of their existing internal tools are not available in India, and that others are only available in French, or are not integrated into their ecosystem. 

As a result, they are having to overhaul their entire system to adapt it to this new market, with potential impacts on all the other teams already using these tools. This can delay the company's international roll-out, where other organizations with a more flexible, unified system would have found a solution much more quickly.

So it's important to deploy the full scalability of your all-in-one platform as soon as it's in place. Even if your organization is currently stable, make sure you configure your unified system so that it adapts to the future, and guards against all eventualities.

4. Make decision-making easier

Do you sometimes have to make decisions involving millions of euros (or even more), that concern the future of your teams? In these situations, it's the coherence between your different data that will make your decision-making solid and effective. 

The problem is, there's a lot of data to be gathered, and it's oftentimes scattered across your various tools. There is little coherence or centralization. You have to identify where to look for each relevant piece of data, and sometimes also take the time to check whether it matches up with feedback you might have received via other similar tools (back to redundancy).

And this impacts on your decision-making, especially when it must be done quickly.

Integrating an all-in-one platform offers you a double benefit:

• All data is visible at the same level, in the same system. You can compare them easily, with just a few clicks.
• The platform integrates seamlessly with your existing tools. This means that when a parameter changes in one of the environments, the other automatically takes it into account, with no action required on your part.  So there's no longer any doubt as to whether there are any duplicates.

Thanks to these integrations, you're better informed in your decision-making, and have all the elements in hand to know exactly what your actions are saving you in terms of budget.

5. Structure your collaboration and communication

Effective collaboration and communication are essential for profitable operations. All-in-one platforms are sometimes also collaboration platforms, aimed at simplifying exchanges between teams and fostering their commitment to projects.

This is the case, for example, with the Klaxoon collaborative platform. It offers a suite of tools based on visual management and engagement: digital whiteboard, ready-to-use methods, private work groups, gamified courses and challenges,...

Depending on your context and needs, these tools make it considerably easier to collaborate, anytime and from anywhere. Some of our customers have saved 3 months in project management, while others have saved 40 man-days in agile meetings. This, of course, represents a substantial budget saving for them.

So it's important to ensure that your all-in-one platform transforms the way you work and collaborate. For you, it's one of the best ways of achieving economies of scale through improved productivity.

6. Create a secure system

According to Gartner, security and profitable growth are two of the most important concerns facing companies today (Market Guide for Visual Collaboration Applications, 2023).

The bottom line is that security is paramount in today's increasingly digital world. All-in-one platforms give priority to the security of the data they host, reducing potentially costly risks.

What's more, a secure workspace is not only cost-effective, it also preserves a company's reputation in legal and media terms. Which also simplifies the budget calculation, if you consider all the steps that are thus avoided.

Conclusion

An all-in-one platform enables you to achieve economies of scale on a number of levels. It clarifies your organization, boosts efficiency and facilitates team exchanges.

In fact, a Gartner survey (Forecast Analysis: Social and Collaboration Software in the Workplace, Worldwide, 2023) reveals that corporate budgets for collaborative solutions will almost double by 2027! This means that there are tangible benefits to be gained over the long term, and that it can even become a real differentiator for these organizations in their market.

By streamlining processes and offering advanced tracking tools, these platforms also enable better use of resources, more informed decision-making and more effective management of budgets.

If you'd like to find out more about deploying an all-in-one platform like Klaxoon, please don't hesitate to contact us!