File formats can be standardized as part of your efforts to help clients avoid unnecessary software upgrades. If you look it from the clients point of view, they don’t want to spend more money than they have to.  This means most of your clients don’t want to upgrade their application suite each year.

From your perspective this works too.  Which is a better opportunity for you?

A) selling $1,000 worth of shrink-wrapped software products (perhaps a 10-20% profit margin…maybe) or
B) selling $1,000 worth of services (generally 60-90%+ profit margin, depending on your cost of labor and utilization rates)?
So if you can influence your clients to forgo unnecessary software upgrades and reallocate those funds toward projects that make a positive contribution to their bottom line, your clients are ahead of the game right? And it’s good for you as well, right?

Standardizing software application file formats just happens to be one of these kinds of opportunities that’s a big win-win for both your firm and your clients.

Because of the more subtle file format changes in recent Microsoft Office version upgrades, many of your clients can avoid purchasing unnecessary version upgrades.

Your clients do not need to upgrade all of their PCs to the same version of Microsoft Office applications to standardize on a single set of file formats. An across-the-board upgrade would be an expensive proposition for them (and not necessarily that profitable for your firm either).

Usually, version upgrades can be phased in gradually as new PCs that include bundled versions of Microsoft Office are purchased.

To get the compatibility benefits, your clients merely need to standardize the file format selections in use. This becomes a cinch as Microsoft Office 2000 and Microsoft Office XP offer integrated support for Microsoft Office 97 file formats. For all applications except Microsoft Access, there is basically full backward compatibility with Microsoft Office 97.

The only warning to head before making any changes to the underlying file formats your clients use, or upgrading your clients’ Microsoft Office applications, is that you should always make sure that your clients have at least one verified and tested full system backup.

Bottom Line on File Formats
File formats that are standardized allow you to hold off on unnecessary software upgrades.  When this happens, the money the clients save on new software can be put to good use by you in terms of improving their system effectiveness.  

In this article, you’ve been introduced to File Formats. To learn more about how you can improve your knowledge about File Formats, just click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.