I spent the best part of fifteen years running IT operations for big businesses. Bluechip retail, a global payroll firm covering 170-odd countries, multiple MSPs looking after national public, private and education sectors. Different industries, very different scale, but the same problem kept turning up everywhere I went. Nobody actually knew what software the business was running on.
Not the obvious stuff. The accounts package, the email system, the CRM, those were always accounted for. I mean the long tail underneath. The plug-ins, the trial accounts that quietly turned into paid ones, the design tool somebody signed up to last March, the personal Dropbox holding three years of customer files because it was easier than asking.
If you run a small business and you're thinking this doesn't apply to you because you're only five people, you're going to be surprised. It's smaller in scale, but the gaps are usually wider, because nobody owns the IT side at all. There's nobody to ask, so people decide for themselves. Same outcome, different route.
Here's what actually causes it. Once you can see the pattern, you can do something about it.
the work doesn't wait
When somebody needs a tool to get a job done today, they're not going to sit on their hands waiting three weeks for a decision. In a big business, the friction is procurement and approval. In a small business, the friction is that nobody owns the question, so the request goes nowhere. Either way, the result is the same. They pick something, sign up, and move on with their day.
The fix isn't to slow people down. It's to make asking easy and answering quick. A short conversation, a clear "yes that's fine" or "use this instead", and you've kept some control without making your team feel like they're navigating a maze.
the official tools don't fit how the work actually happens
You picked your software for sensible reasons at the time. A year on, the team has grown, the work has changed, and the tools don't quite stretch. So people improvise. They export from one system and paste into another. They build a side spreadsheet to track the bits the official tool misses. They start using the free version of something on the side because it just works better for one specific job.
That's a signal, not a problem. It's telling you exactly where your stack is straining. Worth listening to before the workaround becomes the system.
nobody knows what's already paid for
This one costs real money. The marketing tool somebody signed up for last year that nobody uses but is still being charged. Two people on Canva Pro because they didn't realise the other one had it. The CRM with built-in email marketing that nobody mentioned, so somebody else went and bought MailChimp. The Zoom account that's now redundant because everything moved to Teams.
Most small businesses I've looked at could shave 10 to 25% off their software bill just by knowing what's already in the building. I've seen worse. The work is mostly just looking.
anyone with a card can buy software
Twenty years ago you couldn't bring software into a business without IT being involved. There was a disc, a licence key, an installer, a process. Today you sign up with an email address, tap in a card number, and you're in. Free trials roll into monthly subscriptions. There's no purchase order, no review, no questions asked.
That's mostly a good thing. It means people can move fast and try things. But it means visibility has to be deliberate now, because nothing else is forcing it.
remote and hybrid working multiplies it
When the team isn't in the same room, the number of tools needed to keep things connected goes up. That's just true. The downside is that nobody is standing in the same office watching what's getting installed, signed up to, or shared. The number of apps in play in a small remote team is usually two or three times what the owner thinks it is, and the gap grows quietly.
The businesses that have this under control aren't the ones with the strictest rules. They're the ones where asking is easier than guessing.
what to actually do about it
You don't need a governance committee. You need three things.
Know what you've got. Pull six months of card and bank statements and list every software charge on them. Look at your browser autofill. Look at what's installed on the laptops. Half the work is just looking, and the list will surprise you.
Decide what you actually need. Not what was signed up to in a hurry. What the business genuinely uses now. Cancel the rest. Cancel the duplicates. Decide who's responsible for each thing that's left.
Make it easy to ask. Whoever owns IT in your business, even if that's you, needs to be the easy answer when somebody wants a new tool. Not the obstacle. A quick yes is worth more than a slow policy document.
That's the whole job. It isn't really a technology problem, it's a habit. And once the habit is in place, the cost stops drifting and you stop being surprised by what's running underneath you.
why I bother writing about this
I spent years building IT operations for businesses with hundreds of staff and the budgets to match. Audit trails, asset registers, governance reviews, the lot. There is always something to improve. Always somewhere the wheels are coming loose. Always a piece of the picture missing. That's the job.
Now I do the same job for small businesses, and it's the same instinct at a very different speed. No committees to wait on. No three-month review cycle. No 40-page policy nobody's going to read. Just: what's the smallest thing we can put in place this week that means you're not flying blind, and that you'll actually keep doing? At my speed, or fail. There isn't a third option.