I’m not sure what’s more exhausting—running the financials of this company or managing the army of software vendors we rely on to keep things moving. It feels like every single department has its own preferred platform or system, and I’m left juggling contracts, invoices, and endless negotiations for software I didn’t even know we needed. Procurement tells me one thing, IT says another, and then Legal swoops in with a hundred redlines to contracts I barely have time to read. Keeping track of it all is like herding cats—except the cats charge you licensing fees and send three emails a day about upgrades you don’t want.

What frustrates me the most is the sheer complexity of it all. These vendors know they’ve got us over a barrel with their lock-in tactics. Sure, their tools are "indispensable"—until you realize you’re spending more time managing software renewals and compliance than you are on actual strategic planning. Half the time, I feel like a software librarian instead of a CFO, just organizing licenses, chasing down overdue deliverables, and explaining to department heads why we can’t just add 50 more users on a whim without tripling our costs. And don’t even get me started on the hidden fees—they’re buried so deep in some of these contracts I’m convinced they’re written in invisible ink.

It’s not just the money, though that’s aggravating enough. It’s the fact that no one seems to be looking at the big picture. Do we really need three different CRMs, two separate payroll systems, and four project management tools that all supposedly “streamline operations”? All I see is chaos. Every new platform promises to simplify my life, but all they really do is add another vendor to the pile, another login to remember, and another call to make when something inevitably breaks. It’s maddening, and it’s distracting me from what I should be doing: driving this company forward, not babysitting our tech stack.