There was a moment when using spreadsheets to manage part of, or all of, your ITSM workforce was a great idea. That moment has passed.

Change is hard, especially when you, or your workforce management team, has invested considerable time and energy into learning how to manipulate rows and columns, format spreadsheets, and perform calculations. Letting go of your spreadsheet dependency is tough, but necessary, if your business is to thrive in the future. Here’s why:

1. Spreadsheets are not time efficient.

Today’s manual processes are doomed. Automation and AI are rapidly replacing inefficient manual processes that force employees to spend hours inputting information, comprehending data, and initiating actions based on those wasteful processes—especially in the ITSM industry.

ITSM professionals who use spreadsheets to organize, dispatch, and pay their workers are operating in 1998, not 2018. Employees waste countless hours using spreadsheets to onboard workers, organize workers, and pay workers all while sorting through cells, sifting through spreadsheets, and scrolling across rows and columns to find the right data and update changes to phone numbers, addresses, and banking information. It’s a mess. It’s time consuming. And it’s costing your ITSM business serious money.

2. Spreadsheets are not connected.

You can answer your home doorbell from your cubicle. You can send your mother in Abilene, Kansas, flowers from your phone while riding the A train in New York City. But your spreadsheet can’t automate dispatching your worker to a job in a nearby stripmall when it isn’t aware the job is available or that a worker is already nearby. Sure, your spreadsheet can do math, but it can’t create actions that help your ITSM management team build, pay, or manage your workforce.

Spreadsheets don’t connect anything to anything. Spreadsheets don’t know that your worker is on route to a job, or has just completed a job, or is waiting to be paid. Spreadsheets can’t take a picture of a job site, or inform a worker the location of a job has just changed, or that a certain tool is needed to get the job done. ITSM companies that still use spreadsheets are not keeping pace with a modern marketplace that requires nimble, skilled on-demand workforces that provide services quickly and efficiently.

3. Spreadsheets are not scalable.

Sure, you can keep adding rows, columns, and tabs to your spreadsheet as your business grows. But how many cells will you need to account for a worker’s new ITIL certification, various compliance rules and regulation in different states, or if a worker failed a background check or a drug test? Where, exactly, does your spreadsheet offer 1099 health insurance for contractors or guarantee data security?

Growth is the hallmark of a successful business. The more customers an ITSM business has, the more revenue it generates–and the more workers the business needs. Some of those workers may be independent contractors, freelancers, vendors, or full-time W-2 employees. Keeping track of those employees is a major undertaking that requires a level of detail and dynamism that spreadsheets simply cannot provide. Successful ITSM companies do not grow and scale by rows and columns, but by automated systems and connected communications.

How WorkMarket Can Help

WorkMarket, an ADP company, offers ITSM companies an easy-to-use platform that centralizes every operation and communication associated with a successful workforce. WorkMarket’s freelance management software enables ITSM businesses of every size to eliminate wasteful and inefficient processes so they can find, pay, and manage their employees in ways that make money, not spend it.

Learn how WorkMarket can help your business easily transition from outdated spreadsheets to modern software by watching this quick video.