Introduction
When companies launch aggressive cost-reduction initiatives, IT budgets are often among the first to feel the squeeze. In large enterprises aiming to trim $500 million, $1 billion, or even $2 billion in spend, CIOs are asked to consolidate platforms, eliminate tools, and demonstrate immediate savings. Collaboration platforms like Smartsheet, monday.com, or Airtable suddenly look expendable when compared to "already paid for" suites like Microsoft 365.
On paper, cutting these tools looks like a win. But in practice? It can be a strategic misstep that leads to higher long-term costs, lost productivity, and ultimately, re-spending on the very tools that were eliminated. It’s what we call false economy — and if you’re not evaluating the value realization and efficiency gains, you’re not really measuring ROI at all.
In this post, we explore the hidden costs of superficial cost-cutting, why tools like Smartsheet often deliver far more value than their contract line item suggests, and how efficiency forecasting—as championed by Patrick Bet-David in Your Next Five Moves—can help CIOs and IT leaders make smarter, more strategic decisions.
The Cost-Cutting Mandate and Why It Misses the Mark
IT leaders tasked with large-scale cost reductions are often told: consolidate, standardize, and eliminate point solutions. Collaboration and work management platforms like Smartsheet are frequently flagged for elimination due to perceived overlap with Microsoft tools.
The rationale? "We already have Microsoft 365. Why pay for another platform?"
This approach seems logical but is often incomplete and misleading. Why?
- Migration Costs: Moving away from Smartsheet involves re-building workflows, automations, dashboards, and integrations—often at significant time and expense.
- Productivity Loss: Teams accustomed to fast, intuitive solutions experience friction when forced into tools that aren’t built for their workflows.
- Training and Adoption Gaps: Replacing a tool doesn’t guarantee the new one will be used effectively. Learning curves are costly.
- Lost Value: Smartsheet automations, reporting dashboards, and templates often save thousands of hours annually. Eliminating these gains erases hard-won efficiencies.
- Reversion Risk: After months of struggle, many organizations re-subscribe to the very tool they eliminated—effectively paying twice.
A Real-World Case: Smartsheet Removed, Then Reintroduced
A global healthcare organization eliminated Smartsheet in favor of Microsoft tools to satisfy a broad cost-reduction mandate. They assumed SharePoint, Power Automate, and Excel could serve as replacements.
Within months, project managers were bogged down rebuilding workflows. PMO dashboards vanished, automation was lost, and reporting cycles lengthened. User adoption faltered.
Eventually, the CIO reapproved Smartsheet for several business units. The organization paid twice: once in lost productivity and migration effort, and again when re-licensing the platform. The attempt at savings failed because it ignored value realization.
Patrick Bet-David’s Lesson: Forecasting Efficiency Changes the ROI Game
In Your Next Five Moves, Patrick Bet-David shares a powerful anecdote from Chapter 5 that reshapes how we think about payback periods and ROI.
Faced with a $1M+ internal automation project that promised only $50K/year in savings, his team projected a 20-year payback—a non-starter.
But Bet-David didn’t stop there. He asked: what happens if we factor in forecasted efficiency gains as the business scales? As policy volume grew, savings ballooned from $50K/year to $400K/year. The adjusted payback shrank to 5 years, and the project became a clear strategic win.
The lesson:
"Instead of taking twenty years to pay back the million-dollar investment, it would take less than five. What had looked like a no-go project quickly became a go project."
This same logic applies to tools like Smartsheet.
Efficiency Gains Accelerate Payback
CIOs should evaluate Smartsheet and similar platforms not as line-item expenses but as engines of efficiency. With proper adoption, these tools accelerate:
- Time-to-decision
- Project delivery
- Workflow automation
- Portfolio visibility
When applied across hundreds of users, small time savings become major financial gains.
For example:
- A Smartsheet dashboard that eliminates 5 hours/week of manual reporting per project manager across 20 PMs saves 5,200 hours/year. That’s over $250,000 in reclaimed productivity.
If your Smartsheet spend is $100K/year, your ROI is not theoretical—it’s obvious.
And like Bet-David’s example, as your usage scales, your ROI accelerates.
A Smarter Framework for CIOs: Value, Not Just Cost
Before you cut a tool to satisfy a budget line, ask yourself:
- What business outcomes does this tool currently drive?
- What would it cost (in hours and dollars) to migrate those outcomes elsewhere?
- Are our teams truly equipped to adopt the replacement platform with no loss of momentum?
- What is the risk of reversion and repurchase?
- Can I forecast downstream gains like Bet-David did?—and if so, what is the real payback window?
Conclusion: Cut Cost, Not Capability
Not all tools should be kept. But the decision to eliminate must be based on real value analysis, not surface-level cost.
The best IT leaders understand the full picture: true ROI includes productivity, automation, visibility, and time-to-value. Sometimes the biggest strategic mistake is cutting the very thing that was quietly driving your most important wins.
In the end, as Patrick Bet-David teaches us: the right tool with the right forecast isn’t a cost. It’s a multiplier.
