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Putting on a bandage to cover up a problem often results in required major process surgery down the road. The opposite also holds true: buying a sportscar when a bicycle will adequately handle the job puts your process at risk.
Solutions can be cost-effective without sacrificing either client/customer satisfaction or business revenue. Through an understanding of the process(es) involved, creative problem resolutions can truly be win-win.
IDENTIFY PROBLEM. FIND SOLUTION.
Well, 'Identify Problem. Find Solution.' sounds like a "no-brainer," but it is amazing, and dismaying to those with the checkbook, how often misguided solutions are devised and implemented before the actual problem has been identified. People look at the symptoms of the problem rather than the root cause.
If the virtual/digital tools in the guise of solutions took up actual space and dimensions we would be drowning in the garbage heap of failures. We've built tools that are virtual riding lawnmowers to mow a 6 foot plot of lawn. When the virtual riding lawnmower is actually the correct solution, we've forgotten to put in the right 'gas' to make it work for our process and users.
An organization may be hoodwinked by the wizardry of a fancy digital tool, with lights flashing and whistles blowing, but their employees are stuck with trying to make the tool fit the process, and it often leads to another set of symptoms and yet another misguided solution down the road.
No matter what type of data problem you are trying to solve, if the solution is a virtual/digital tool the "process complications" need to be built into the structure of the tool so that the process is easily repeatable. And, the solution cannot be specific to one area/piece of the overall company data process; it must take into account what information feeds into it and how the solution will affect data moving forward.