Case C
Four vendors when one would have done
Vendor sprawl at year one is invisible until year five.
- Company
- Same Silicon Valley medical device company, at the two-employee stage.
- Speaks loudest to
- COO, CFO
- Lesson
- Vendor sprawl at year one is invisible until year five.
Challenge.
At two employees, they picked separate vendors for identity, email, file storage, and meetings. Each was the cheapest convenient option. The combined integration cost and duplicated functionality ran $10,000 to $20,000 per month for years before anyone noticed.
Solution (what we now do).
Consolidate to a single integrated stack on day one. One identity surface. One audit trail. One vendor relationship.
Result.
- $10K–$20K / mo
- Duplicated spend, for years before anyone noticed
- Multi-month
- Migration once consolidation began
- Full team
- Real retraining cost across the employee base, plus compliance work redone
What this means for you.
Vendor sprawl is the cheapest bad decision a startup can make and the most expensive one to undo.