Report: Companies use Word out of habit, not necessity
Over at Macworld, they recently posted up a report from IDG about how companies use Word out of habit, not necessity. Coming off of a careers in IT administration, this doesn’t surprise me the least. As an IT administrator, I can’t tell you how many times management has chosen to continually invest in Microsoft Office without any thought into cheaper alternatives.
About a year ago, I was researching Microsoft Office 2007 and other solutions like OpenOffice for the company I was working for. I found OpenOffice to be a highly viable solution. However, the wildcard at the time was compatibility with Microsoft’ new Office 2007 file formats. Would OpenOffice support them? The answer was not now but eventually. I don’t think management was cozy with the idea of adopting what they probably felt was an unproven free solution. After all, how can free equate to something that is better than what Microsoft has to offer?
In the end, the choice was made to invest in Office 2007…and a rather pricey investment at that! The only thing I could ascertain was that management went with Microsoft Office (again!) not because it was the best solution but rather it was the most popular. It was what most people were comfortable with and it was, for the most part, an industry standard. Thus “Why invest in anything else?” was probably the question that resulted in the final decision. What they didn’t realize was the Office 2007 was different enough from previous release to warrant a significant amount of training to employees. So much for the existing comfort level.
And it doesn’t stop with just Microsoft Office. There were plenty of times where the most popular and commonly used applications were chosen over ones that would likely have worked just as well if not better. Even when all the research shows that solution A is better than solution B, management still goes with solution B out of habit. Why? My guess is that business owners pick the one that is the most popular one of the bunch so that they don’t have to spend much time thinking about it. They figure that the most popular choice is the most sound from a business point of view. After all, if it’s the most popular, wouldn’t that mean that more people in their industry are using it and thus it gets more support?
Habit it seems has as much to do with sticking with what’s popular over what is the best solution to a given problem. The best advice I can give any business is to break yourself out of this habit. The best solutions are the ones that fit your business better…not the ones that are the most popular. If the most popular one happens to be the one that fits your business and solves your problem better then, by all means, stick with that one. But if another solution happens to be better for your business and is cheaper, definitely take the time to thoroughly investigate it. You’ll be glad you did.
