What kinds of factors play a part in your business’ decisions when deciding to upgrade your software? The anticipation of cool new features and the ability to streamline work processes seems to be the advertised hook for many upgrade decisions, but in reality, numerous components of a business stand to improve by utilizing the newest updates available. Software updates are an essential part of business maintenance that can also lead to growth.

Taking a Closer Look:

Staying Compatible

Providing the best platform to conduct business means maintaining the highest potential for functioning on a daily basis. When you are encountering freezing, delayed responding, or inability to download new applications, productivity is halted. Often traced back to software incompatibility, software hosts have a great deal of power in optimizing functioning. For instance, what if you are exchanging files with others, and you are not able to read and modify each other’s files? Kinks like this can be avoided by simply maintaining updated software. There is good news to make sure that you don’t have to find yourself in this position! Simply, respond promptly to the system upgrades as they notify you!

Maintaining Support

Be wary of dismissing update notifications because in order to maintain the best support by the service provider, it is important to maintain current software. Worst case, system users could loose support from the software creator, but this need not be an issue as long as communication and compliance with the provider is maintained. Support teams want to field questions and resolve software glitches, as it is their primary goal, but if the user chooses not to update versions, there is a limited window of support that can be provided. Establishing a healthy relationship with software support will save you time and elbow grease, so make sure you are in a position where they can provide the best support possible.

Reduce Cost

Many may think that upgrading software is an added cost, yet under further considerations, upgrading has the potential to save money in the long run. For example, if you skip several upgrades, the impact of the change in software will be far greater than if you have upgraded every version. Depending on how many upgrades may be skipped, user interfaces could be completely altered, thus impacting users and operations far more dramatically than if the upgrade curve was gradual. Instead, maintaining updates means less time and money is put into training because users progressively adjust to changes.

Relationship with Partners, Clients, and Prospects

Keep an efficient and professional relationship with partners, clients, and prospects by showing preparedness and that their time is highly valued, ensuring the largest component of a growing and thriving business. Any software utilized in business processes directly impacts the interactions and management with partners and clients. Whether communications are shared via a common network, emails are sent out through a database, or data is stored in a central location for sharing, keeping software up to date is of the upmost importance to maintain great relationships with clients, partners, and prospects.

Get the Latest Features

Upgrades always bring with them new and improved features, and besides maintaining sufficient business processes, this may be the greatest incentive to update. Find out what the features are with each upgrade and what value these features will bring to your business. Are there bug fixes that are must-have, new features that will enhance your business efficiency, or are the changes ones you have no use for? Most often, software providers release new features based on the requests from users or because new technology has been developed to improve their product, so discussing updating for such features is an incentive in itself.

To take the confusion out of your next upgrade decision, it is worth considering getting independent, expert advice. Check out how Dependable Solutions, Inc. can help accelerate your business processes to the next level by visiting www.dependablesolutions.com.