New Rippling Report Highlights Software Sprawl as Major Resource Drain for HR, IT & Finance Departments

Managers Flag Significant Administrative Task Burdens: “As Tedious as Matching Socks,” “More Painful than Stepping on a Lego”

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Rippling, the leading business software platform, releases a new survey demonstrating the staggering impact that software tool sprawl has on IT, HR, and Finance departments. According to the Rippling State of Sprawl Report, fragmented technology stacks place a significant burden on organizations, requiring substantial investments of time and budget and leading to inefficiencies, frustration and waste.

The report surveyed 750 managers and above across HR, IT and Finance departments and found 85% of respondents use more than three software tools just in their own departments. The vast majority said this sprawl requires more than two full time employees just to manage, integrate and troubleshoot those software tools.

Key insights from the State of Sprawl Report include:

• Teams are overburdened with basic administrative tasks: Over 75% of IT and HR teams and 70% of finance teams spend at least 25% of their time on admin tasks—and 75% want to spend more time on strategy.
• Pain from clunky software is universal: Majority of Finance, HR, and IT leaders say administrative tasks are as painful as stepping on Legos and as tedious as matching socks, while data inconsistencies make them want to bang their heads against the wall.
• Wishing for a magic fix: Nearly 7 in 10 leaders across IT (66%), HR (73%), and Finance (64%) wish they could wave a magic wand and delete half their apps.
• Unused licenses lead to waste: More than half of IT and HR teams, and nearly 80% of Finance teams, believe a significant portion of their software licenses go unused.

However, the report also found several positive bright spots with 72% of leaders across Finance, HR and IT saying their teams work well across functions. Respondents also expressed a desire to spend more time on strategic work rather than admin tasks.

"The findings in this report shine a light on what teams have been struggling with for years: software that was supposed to make work easier has instead made it harder and more chaotic. Nobody signs up to spend their day juggling logins, fixing payroll mistakes, or fighting disparate tools that don’t talk to each other. We built Rippling to flip that script. By unifying HR, IT, and Finance in one place, we make business software that actually works for businesses," said Rippling VP of Marketing Ryan Narod.

A decade ago, companies used an average of 16 SaaS tools but today that number has ballooned to more than 100. While each tool solves a narrow challenge, collectively they introduce systemic inefficiencies, require multiple logins and data remains fragmented across platforms. Instead of driving productivity, “Software as a Service” apps have quickly led to what Rippling has highlighted as “Software as a Disservice.”

Rippling unifies HR, IT, Spend, and more on one easy to use platform with employee data as a shared source of truth. Serving more than 20,000 customers globally, Rippling provides a platform of over 20 products and 600+ platform integrations across payroll, benefits, identity and enterprise mobile device management, finance, and more. On average, Rippling customers spend 50% less time on administrative tasks across HR, IT, and Finance compared to those using competing solutions. Powered by industry leading customer support and a flexible, modular pricing model designed to let companies scale, Rippling provides an all-in-one business software solution.

About Rippling:
Rippling gives businesses one place to run HR, IT, and Spend – globally. It brings together all of the workforce systems that are normally scattered across a company, like payroll, expenses, benefits, and computers. For the first time ever, you can manage and automate every part of the employee lifecycle in a single system. Based in San Francisco, CA, Rippling has raised $1.8B from the world's top investors – including Kleiner Perkins, Founders Fund, Sequoia, and Bedrock.