Freshworks report finds “hard to use” tools are driving wasted budgets and long deployments
Freshworks conducted a qualitative and quantitative survey at the end of November 2025 across the United States, United Kingdom, India, France, Germany, and Australia. Participants came from organisations sized small (10 to 250 employees), commercial, mid-size and large (1000+ employees), spanning multiple sectors such as retail, travel, entertainment, education, manufacturing, and public bodies.
Freshworks’ Cost of Complexity Report reveals UK organisations regret 20% of their total software spend, prompting many to question the value of the systems they rely on daily. The research points to familiar challenges including complicated software environments, slow implementation cycles and tools that are difficult for teams to adopt. Together, these issues slow progress, obscure ROI, and divert focus and resources away from serving customers.
Regretted Technology
Across the UK economy, regretted technology spend exceeds £32 billion annually. Businesses report regret across:
- 19% of CX software spend
- 13% of AI and agentic tools, and
- 12% of ITSM investments.
In practice, this shows up as powerful but hard-to-configure platforms, AI that stalls after pilots, and ITSM systems that struggle to adapt to real workflows.
Long delivery and implementation timelines continue to hold organisations back. While 76% of vendors claim they can complete projects in under six months, 37% of UK businesses report software projects taking longer. This gap erodes confidence and drives up costs. The main drivers of technology regret are slipping timelines, skills gaps, and uncoordinated project management. Together, these issues point to overcomplicated stacks, stretched internal capacity, and unclear ownership during delivery.
These issues also affect employees: 36% of UK staff face complicated processes, and 32% report organisational complexity. Day-to-day, this means juggling too many tools, duplicating work, or waiting on approvals across systems. As a result, 63% of UK employees say they are likely to leave their organisation in the next year.
Simon Hayward, GM and VP Sales International at Freshworks, commented:
“For too long, complexity has been mistaken for progress, but in reality – it slows teams down and hides waste. UK businesses need to treat simplicity as a deliberate choice and look to streamline overlapping tools, set firm timelines and scrap solutions that don’t add any value. Across Freshworks customers including Frasers Group, Hobbycraft, The Christie NHS Foundation Trust and Travis Perkins – we are seeing business and technology leaders go back to basics, focusing on practical steps that help teams work better. That means simplifying toolsets, setting clearer implementation milestones and choosing platforms that are easier to adopt and quicker to deliver results.”
Simon Hayward concludes, “UK businesses should be looking to do all they can to reduce friction, refocus teams and make sure every pound invested in software genuinely supports the work people are trying to do. Organisations that act now and uncomplicate with urgency will move faster and get far more return from the technology they use.”
