How the Platform Consolidation Shift Eliminates Software Sprawl

Detailed summary

Software sprawl rarely begins with a deliberate strategy. A finance team buys an application to improve reporting. HR introduces another to manage employees.

Adam Baker, Principal Product Manager for Procurement, Contract and Supplier Management, OneAdvanced ANZ | Published 12 Nov 2026

GUEST OPINION: Software sprawl rarely begins with a deliberate strategy. A finance team buys an application to improve reporting. HR introduces another to manage employees.

Procurement adds a supplier portal, while risk managers maintain spreadsheets alongside specialist tools. Each purchase addresses a genuine need, but together they can create an operating environment that is expensive to maintain and difficult to govern.

For Australian and New Zealand (ANZ) organisations, the case for consolidation extends beyond reducing software subscriptions. As privacy expectations strengthen and businesses face pressure to demonstrate compliance, fragmented systems make fundamental questions harder to answer: Where is critical information held? Who can change it? Can the organisation explain how a decision was made? And how much risk have we taken on?

Bringing related functions into a trusted platform can simplify those answers if consolidation is designed around governance, security and how people actually work.

The cost of software sprawl includes the work required to keep disconnected systems aligned. Employees re-enter information, reconcile inconsistent records and transfer sensitive documents via email. Managers spend time establishing which report is current before they can act on it.

Analyst research identifies similar problems in cybersecurity. Gartner’s report on platform consolidation describes the complexity, overlap and blind spots associated with multiple security vendors and tools. Although focused on cybersecurity, it illustrates a broader operational challenge: individual applications can perform well while the overall environment remains difficult to manage.

For business leaders, this makes consolidation a question of operating effectiveness. A connected platform can provide finance, procurement and risk teams with access to consistent…

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