The concept of shelfware isn’t a new one. In fact, it’s something we’ve been talking about since research showed that U.S. organizations wasted $30 billion on unused software over four years. And arguably, it is more relevant now than ever before.
Organizations have been buying software the same way for the longest time. It’s a slow process and customers can only experience tools in contrived demo scenarios, making it difficult to tell if they’re going to bring value or not. Spoiler alert! – often they don’t. As Gartner highlights, at any point in time IT operations can be running with 25%+ of software unused and sitting around gathering dust.

“If you buy something and don’t get any value from it because you didn’t know enough about how it would behave in your environment, you end up spending thousands of dollars for shelfware.” – Sean Mee, VP Customer Success, 1E

The world of work has dramatically changed due to the pandemic, and the accelerated move to hybrid work means new tools and technology are required to succeed. As we enter a digital workplace revolution, ensuring that you make the right strategic investments to bring value to your organization has never been so important. So, what can we do to avoid the shelfware dilemma?
The answer lies not only in the new tools and technologies available, but also in the way enterprises procure them. It’s time to challenge the traditional approach to enterprise software sales, find a model to reflect the modern world of work, and really focus on proving value.

A new approach

The pandemic proved as a catalyst for everyone leaving HQ and taking their laptop to the kitchen table (or if you’re one of the lucky ones, a home office!) Connecting enterprises to their hybrid workforces and ensuring IT teams have control and visibility over all remote endpoints is the priority. It’s important for organizations to understand the benefit and value of a tool in this context. As such, we’ve decided to turn the software evaluation process on its head to reflect this.
How? Well, that’s easy:

  • We’ve introduced the FIT framework, which enables us to drive quantifiable outcomes for our customers, and enable cost savings whilst increasing end-user experience and productivity
  • We’re offering it to you for six months at $0 so you can experience our endpoint management software, Tachyon, in your own environment before deciding to buy it

Why? That’s easy, too.
We believe the modern workplace should be frictionless, user-centric, and not cluttered with dusty point solutions turned shelfware.

Fix, Improve, Transform

We introduced the FIT framework over a year ago with one mission in mind: enable you to experience what it’s like really like to use our software in your environment and how we engage with, and support, our customers.
It’s designed to show you how continuous benefits can be achieved. We will work with you to create a shared idea of what success looks like over six months, then equip you with an easy to follow “framework” with milestones and objectives.
Wanna know the best part? It can’t become shelfware because we’re there every step of the way! The FIT framework addresses getting software working and taking it past the installation phase with a “recurring consulting engagement”. Month on month we stay engaged, share progress reports, and do quarterly FIT health checks.

If you’d like to learn more about our initiative to disrupt the traditional enterprise software business model, you can see an overview here. If you’d like to talk to us about this new way of engaging, contact us today!