Software moved from a purchase to a subscription, and from a few large systems to many specialised ones. The result is that a small business with a dozen employees commonly pays for twenty to forty separate tools.
How it accumulates
Nobody decides to have forty tools. Each one is adopted by someone for a specific reason, costs a small monthly amount, and never gets reviewed.
Departments adopt independently, so the same function is often paid for twice. The person who signed up may have left, with the subscription continuing on a card nobody reconciles.
What an audit finds
Typically: several tools nobody has logged into for months, at least two pairs of overlapping products, licences for departed staff, and a tier upgrade nobody remembers choosing.
Reductions of a quarter to a third of total software spend are common on a first pass, with no loss of capability.
How to do it
Start with the card statements rather than with a list of tools, because the list will be incomplete. Every recurring charge, twelve months back.
For each: who uses it, when did they last log in, what would break if it stopped. Cancel anything where the third answer is nothing.
Then look for overlap. Most businesses are paying for two ways to do the same thing.
The consolidation trade-off
Suite products that do many things adequately are cheaper than several specialists and worse at each. Whether that trade is worth it depends on whether any of the specialists is load-bearing.
The honest answer is usually that one or two are and the rest are not.
The discipline that prevents recurrence
A single person who approves recurring spend, and an annual review. Both are boring and both work.