Most businesses had regrets related to a software purchase in the past 18 months

More than half of businesses worldwide say they experienced the same feeling some people get after buying a timeshare following the purchase of a piece of software in the past year: regret.

According to a recent Capterra report, 59% of businesses said they regretted at least one software purchase in the 18 months. The findings were based on a survey that queried more than 3,500 businesses across nine countries.

Security, IT, and software development-related programs had the highest reported purchase regret (38%), followed by marketing and communications (31%) and human resources-related software (28%).

When reflecting on the purchase they had second thoughts on, 49% of businesses say that the bad buy caused their business to have increased costs. Another 42% say that the regret purchase caused their organization to have security vulnerabilities and reduced productivity.

Tips for a remorseless shopping experience. Despite a couple regrets here and there, businesses don’t plan on holding back on future software purchases. Three-quarters of organizations surveyed said they expect to increase their software spending in the next year.

IT Brew caught up with Yashin Manraj, CEO of cloud native platform Pvotal Technologies, to see how IT leaders can reduce their chances of buyer’s remorse. His advice? Spend a little more than the equivalent of a full day’s work shift on testing the potential software before purchasing.

“You should at least have 10 hours of real use cases or work on it to make sure that this is the right decision for you,” Manraj said. “In our experience, I think that has helped us at least iron out what types of problems you can face [and the] types of bugs you can encounter while doing real work on it.”

Manraj added that organizations should rely on multiple sources when doing research on a particular piece of software and remain wary when using AI during the process.

“I would recommend people not to use that as their only source given that it is now becoming a very big practice for companies to poison those types of large language models to skew them in their favor,” he said.

Manraj added that IT leaders should keep an eye out for any initial warning signs of an unfit match given by software vendors during the buying process.

“If they force you to sign multi-year contract[s]...those are red flags that the product by itself is not very good,” he said.