Beyond the Click: Shifting from Feature Requests to Business Impact

Beyond the Click: Shifting from Feature Requirement to Business Impact and Outcome

One of the reflections I often return to as Founder and product expert at AskCody is how differently software is viewed depending on where in the organization you sit and your overall perspective, horizon, and lens. 

At the leadership level, executives talk about business requirements, productivity, and organizational impact. Meanwhile, day-to-day users and employees closest to the process focus on features, clicks, and their personal workflow.

Both perspectives are valid. But they are not equal when it comes to driving business transformation. And it's important to separate both perspectives in evaluating and buying software. 

Micro vs. Macro Perspectives

When we talk about feature requests vs. business impact, we are really talking about two different lenses:

• The Micro Lens — used by end-users and people closest to the process. This zooms in on usability, tasks, and personal efficiency. It’s about making today’s workflow simpler for me.

• The Macro Lens — used by leadership or decision makers. This zooms out on processes, automation, governance, and productivity across the organization. It’s about making tomorrow’s operations more efficient at scale and the overall business outcome; what do we win as a business, not as an individual?

Because these lenses are so different, conversations often end in tension or conflict. An end-user asks for fewer clicks. Leadership counters with the need to eliminate 10 entire business interactions. Both sides are right — but they struggle to understand each other because they are solving for different outcomes. And honestly, often the loudest opinion wins, even though it may be on a micro lens level.

Bridging these perspectives is where true value lies. But by the end of the day, only one perspective often wins.

A Customer Story: 17 Interactions vs. 3 Steps

Not long ago, a customer told me about the process of booking a single four-hour meeting with lunch. Without AskCody.

He counted 17 different interactions with colleagues, vendors, and internal departments. From booking a room, contacting catering, confirming dietary needs, chasing IT support, and handling last-minute changes. The meeting became a project in itself. And it was extremely error-prone and time consuming.

With AskCody, this entire process could have been reduced to three simple steps:

1. Book the room

2. Add catering and services in the same flow

3. Confirm the meeting

Everything else is automated. No email chains. No phone calls. No duplicated effort.

With this customer, the implementation and adoption of AskCody have been difficult since a few end-users now had an extra click compared to their "old way of working" that had stopped the further roll-out, now leading to this experience.

This is the essence of the conversation: 17 business interactions eliminated vs. 1 click saved by a single user.

Which matters more? And why is this a difficult conversation?

(And yes, roll-out is back on track, but it led to this reflection of the importance of separating clicks from business outcomes)

Why Business Requirements Matter More Than Features

It’s easy to get caught up in whether a workflow takes one, two, or three clicks. And yes, usability matters - it really does - it ensures adoption, satisfaction, and a smooth daily experience. And I'm a huge believer that by the end of the day, product experience wins.

But when evaluating enterprise software, the real value lies in business requirements and organizational impact, not solving for the endless list of feature requests. Because end-users will always have more feature requests.

Leaders ask questions like:

• How many processes can we automate or eliminate?

• How much wasted time can we remove from the organization?

• How do we scale governance and compliance across regions?

• What productivity gains are measurable across hundreds or thousands of employees?

The shift is from local optimization (my clicks, my workflow) to system-wide transformation (our processes, our outcomes).

A Framework for Thinking About Features vs. Business Impact

Here’s a straightforward way to evaluate software requirements:

Both lenses matter. But the macro lens is what creates scale, ROI, and measurable impact for an entire business. 

And from my perspective, buying and evaluating enterprise software should be about solving for business requirements and impact, not individual clicks, or subjective opinions. 

Don't confuse clicks with impact

Yes, usability matters. But let’s not confuse clicks with impact. And let's evaluate on a business requirement level, not feature requirement. Too often I've heard about business and enterprise applications being evaluated on a "missing feature", while the same applications drive tons of productivity, impact and efficiency for other business units and users, outside of the horizon or the lens. 

Optimizing for fewer clicks improves the individual. Automating 17 business interactions transforms the organization.

The key is to never dismiss the feelings or frustrations of employees closest to the process, even if they can’t always see beyond their immediate workflow. Their experience is real, and their input is essential.

At the same time, it is the responsibility of business leaders and decision-makers to motivate, educate, and help everyone understand the bigger picture. Sometimes one person’s “extra click” enables automation that saves ten other colleagues hours of work and moves an entire business.

This is what I like to call a form of parallel-shifted value creation: one person’s extra click may not feel valuable in their own workflow or use of a product, but it unlocks efficiency and productivity gains for the wider organization. The value is not realized at the individual level, but in the ripple effects across teams, processes, and business outcomes. In other words, the effort is local, but the benefit is global.

That’s why true transformation requires both perspectives: respecting the micro but solving for the macro.

And that’s the balance we strive for every day at AskCody. Both in our product development and innovation, as well as in how we help transform workplaces with our Platform.