How to choose business software without buying things you don't need

Indian SMEs are sold a lot of software. ERP systems, HRMS platforms, project management tools, CRMs, collaboration suites — the demos are all impressive and the contracts are all long. Most companies end up paying for 5 tools and properly using 2.

Start with a pain inventory, not a demo. What takes too long? What gets done wrong because it's manual? Where does information get lost? The software you need is the software that solves those specific problems — not the software with the most features.

Before buying any software, answer four questions: Will at least 80% of our team actually use this in the first 60 days? Does it integrate with the tools we already use? Can we export our data if we want to leave? Is the vendor likely to exist in 3 years?

For an established Indian SME, the core software stack is simpler than most vendors will tell you: accounting (Tally or Zoho Books), payroll (Greytip, Keka, or Razorpay Payroll), project/task management (Asana, Monday, or Notion), CRM (Zoho CRM or HubSpot), and communication (Google Workspace or Microsoft 365). That's it for most companies under 100 people.

Avoid the ERP trap at the wrong stage. An ERP is appropriate when your business processes are mature, documented, and sufficiently complex that separate tools can't connect them. Implementing an ERP with immature processes is very expensive and usually fails. Most companies under ₹20Cr revenue don't need one.

Negotiate. Almost all SaaS vendors will offer discounts for annual payment, startups, or MSME classification. Ask before you buy.