It’s important to plan for the future. And you should be ready to invest more as you grow. But do you really need to make that investment now? Or can you wait until you really need it?

Software companies are in business to make money. And the more licenses they sell you, the more money they make. So when we’re working with clients and they need a license for some software, we often butt heads with the software company.

We’re helping the client invest their budget wisely. So part of that goes to software licenses and part of it goes to services to implement it. But the software company wants that budget to buy lots of software.

And it’s true, you may need that many licenses in five or ten years. But why would you buy it now?

The approach I’ve had since the 90’s and what we’ve always suggested at LSG Solutions is buy just enough, then scale later. You will eventually need to grow and you may as well plan for that. So do keep in mind what you’ll need to budget later on. But don’t spend that budget now, wait.

The cloud is a great example of how this is even easier now than it used to be. I recently advised a customer of ours to add another CPU to his environment so it will work better for his current needs.

In years past, you would need to research and purchase another piece of software. And most people wouldn’t have bought an additional CPU, they would have just purchased a new computer.

But in a cloud-based environment, you just invest a little more, and someone goes into your resource quota limits and adds one to the CPUs you already have set up.

Think about a man going to the hardware store. He sees something like flooring on sale and thinks to himself, “I’m going to need this tool someday.” Then as he’s putting it up at home in his garage, he spots an unopened box and asks himself, “When did I buy this chainsaw?”

Don’t waste money on hardware or software that you don’t need now. Stop buying things you think you’ll need but you may end up never using, at least right now.

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