What complexity costs your business every day
Freshworks
Providing people-first AI service software to deliver exceptional customer and employee experiences.
What would your team do with an extra day each week? Because right now, they're losing it—not to meetings, not to email, but to the complexity of the tools and processes they (ostensibly) use to work faster and more productively.
New research from Freshworks’ The Global Cost of Complexity report quantifies this sobering reality: Employees lose 6.8 hours per week navigating complicated software and fragmented processes. That's nearly 350 hours per year, per person, spent fighting systems instead of serving customers or driving innovation. Multiply that across an organization, and leaders are looking at thousands of hours—and millions of dollars—wasted on digital friction. One U.K.-based company described their tech stack as "Medusa,” a creature with many heads that "bite back when they don't work."
The company isn’t alone.
The numbers tell a story of a crisis hiding in plain sight. Companies waste $1 out of every $5 spent on software due to failed implementations and underused tools. More than half (53%) haven't received the ROI they expected from their software investments. And perhaps most concerning: 60% of employees say they're likely to quit within the next year, with complexity, complicated processes, and burnout leading the list of reasons why.
Organizations that tackle this head-on have different outcomes. Those with high IT productivity deliver 35% higher revenue growth and 10% higher profit margins compared to their peers, according to McKinsey. Gallup found that highly engaged employees boost profitability by 23%. The companies winning right now aren't the ones with the most sophisticated stacks—they're the ones that had the courage to uncomplicate.
Read more: The cost of complexity on business
Quiz: What's your growth archetype?
Complexity impacts every organization in different ways, with different solutions to resume growth, increase productivity, and improve morale. Take our quiz to find out what kind of complication is holding you back, and get answers on how to move forward.
An uncomplicated business strategy
The Global Cost of Complexity report makes it clear that organizations can no longer afford to treat complex software as a normal cost of doing business. By rethinking technology stacks and prioritizing simplicity, organizations can unlock real growth by optimizing budgets, recovering lost productivity, and improving employee morale. Download the full report.
Ready to cut complexity at your organization? Join the Refresh Virtual Summit on Nov. 18. Save your spot.
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Great share and insights with fresh perspectives
This one hits home. 🙃 I’m juggling 10 different tools for 10 different parts of my job, and none of them talk to each other. What should be seamless turns into constant admin work: updating, syncing, copying data across platforms. Every hour lost to software friction is an hour not spent generating revenue. It’s wild that “complexity tax” has become the silent killer of productivity. The right tools shouldn’t slow us down, they should disappear into the workflow. 😶🌫️ Like the way I think? I’m transitioning careers — let’s chat.