Most mid-market companies are paying for software licenses nobody uses. The direct cost is one problem. What it signals to lenders, acquirers, and auditors is another.

Software platform selection is an administrative and financial decision. Here's why handing it to IT is one of the most common and costly defaults in mid-market companies.

Before the vendor demo. Before the business case. Before anyone starts talking about price. Someone should have asked: what problem are we actually solving, and how will we know if we solved it? Who in the organization will be affected and have they had any input? What does the contract look like if this does not work? What are we not seeing?