How can I persuade a “cost-focused” finance team to approve my requested SaaS solutions and changes to the tech stack that I believe will improve revenue and forecasting?

To rationalize with a cost centric finance team is slightly challenging, but let me give it a try:

– List the Advantages: Define how exactly integrating these SaaS tools and switching tech stack will result in increased revenue or better forecasting. Use actual numbers or examples where applicable – it really strengthens your argument.

- If you can, I think it's worth stressing that while there is an initial expense with short-term solutions they pay off in the long run. Or it automates some drudge labor, eliminates errors or consolidates several legacy systems and ultimately saves money.

That sets the stage for this place in your followup process where you point out any current pain points and gently nudge them to notice that they just might be holding their company back. Demonstrate how the new tools alleviate these pains!

Option 2: Suggest a pilot program or limited rollout of the feature. Also, by starting small it reduces the initial outlay and allows their finance teams to understand how they benefit from this move.

Align with Company Goals: Your proposal should link back to those big-picture objectives that the company is trying to achieve. Showing how your recommendations help to boost revenue and better forecast accordingly if those are the priorities.

– Bring them to the Table — Involve finance people from Day One Input from them may be useful and inviting them might help in making then comfortable with the concept.

- Prepare for Questions: Expect them to be worried about price, time needed and risks. Have your honest answers ready, as transparency will help with trust.

- Be Flexible: If they are still resistant, start the changes slow by saying "ok, Let's try doing this setup in phases" or pick a couple of most used tools.

Show them the money:

1. What are current expenses with your existing tech stack?

2. What are the issues with the current tech stack? How do those issues impact the bottom line? (Ideally this is a quantitative answer, but can be qualitative)

3. If you're looking to add to the tech stack, what are the gaps that you're addressing? Why can't they be filled with existing technology?

4. If you're looking to streamline the tech stack, are the changes cost-saving or cost-neutral? What are the additional benefits that come with your recommendation?

5. Are there business risks that are addressed with your recommendation?

6. Are there other departments that champion/support this recommendation?

Perhaps you can't justify the expense right now and have to make due with the existing tech stack and/or processes. But, if you have the business case ready, sometimes business situations arise that make executives look at your proposal more favorably.

A real life example:

I had to write a proposal to add a data back-up solution to our tech stack. This was a gap in our tech, but it wasn't well received by finance because it seemed like an extraneous expense.

"Thankfully", an automation solution had been launched into the production instance of our CRM which merged thousands of unrelated customer records. It took several months to notice what had happened.

If we had a data back-up solution available, we could have restored the data back to the point before this merge happened. However, because we didn't, I now had a real-life example to justify the expense:

1. I was able to show in work hours how much this one fix cost the company;

2. I was also able to explain the impact related to data integrity, as the system was the source of truth for customer data. Because it took a few months to identify that there was an issue, we were not able to recover all of the customer data.

3. The issue was also championed by other departments as a business necessity.