A new machine is delivered to a factory floor. The team gathers around it, pleased. One man stands apart, looking away.

The short version

You bought it.
Nobody used it.

We teach your people how to run the technology you're buying. The teaching gets bought with it, in the same contract, and it keeps running for as long as you own the asset.

Ground & Form Advisory · Akron, Ohio
tigerteam@groundandform.com · +1 330 715 3895

§01 /

Here's what happens

It goes like this, almost every time.

A visiting engineer in a red shirt shows a group of workers how to use a new machine. A rolling suitcase stands beside him. — Week one

The seller's engineer shows everybody how the technology works.

He's good at it. He also has a suitcase, and he's flying home Friday.

Workers stand around a machine on a factory floor with their hands up, unsure. One man walks away with his arms folded. — Month four

The one person who really knew the technology took another job.

Everybody else can sort of run it. Nobody wants to be the one who breaks the machine.

The machine sits behind a closed curtain in the corner of a warehouse, surrounded by stacked pallets. — Month nine

The asset is behind a curtain at the end of the bay.

Pallets stacked in front of it. Nobody has touched the controls since spring.

Here's the part that matters

Nobody did anything wrong. Nobody got taught.

Expensive equipment parked behind heavy curtains in a dim corner of a plant, while work carries on in the lit bay beyond.

§02 /

And then this

Nobody calls it a failure. It just sits there.

The investment quietly drops off next year's budget. Everybody moves on. The money is gone and nobody ever has to say so out loud.

§03 /

Now flip it around

You're the one who sold the technology.

They loved it. They paid you. They never called again.

No second order. No good word to the next customer. No reference when you need one.

Same story, both sides

You didn't lose the sale. You lost everything after the sale.

A woman leans over her laptop at a desk, tired, working late.

§04 /

This is not rare

It happens almost every time.

Half

Wish they hadn't

More than half of companies regret the biggest technology they bought.

Gartner · survey of 1,120 technology buyers

1 in 3

Paid for, never touched

About a third of the software seats companies pay for, nobody ever logs into.

Zylo · 2026 index, 40M licences

$21M

Gone, every year

What the average big company spends per year on software nobody opens.

Zylo · 2025 index

Say that out loud

Twenty-one million dollars a year. For things nobody uses. That's a whole building full of money.

§05 /

So why does this keep happening?

Buying is easy. Learning is hard.

Nobody buys the learning along with the technology. So one person figures it out on their own, on nights and weekends. Then that person leaves, and what they knew leaves with them.

§06 /

Say this one out loud

If one person is the only one who can run it, you don't really own it yet.

You're renting that capability from an employee. You can't see the lease, you can't renew it, and you can't stop them from ending it.

§07 /

What we do about it

An instructor walks a group of machinists through the controls of a machine on the shop floor, with manuals and a tablet on the bench beside them.

The learning gets bought with the technology.

We list what your people need to know to run the technology, and who needs to know it.
That list gets bought in the contract. Same signature, same budget, same day.
We teach them. Real classes, real tests, before go-live and well after it.
It keeps running. New hires, new shifts, new versions, three years later.

This is not a workshop before you sign

It's a service you own for as long as you own the asset.

§08 /

What you can buy from us

Four things. Take one or take all of them.

One

Your own training website

A place where your people take classes and you can see who finished what. We run it for you every month, or you buy it outright. It stays live for as long as you own the technology.

We run it Or you own it

Two

Classes on how the pieces fit together

How the machines and software connect, and how the work around them has to change. Written so you can update it later instead of paying to write it again on the next job.

Use it again Easy to update

Three

Classes about your specific product

We write them for your technology. Then you put them wherever you want. On our website, on yours, or built into whatever your company already uses. Either way, they're yours.

On ours On yours Or built into your systems

Four

Help writing and arguing the deal

Whether you're buying or selling. A set fee, plus more only if we hit the results we agreed on before we started. If it doesn't work, you don't pay that part.

If you're buying If you're selling Paid on results

One extra, if you're selling something complicated

We can go on the contract too, as the company that does the teaching.

Your customer gets a real name on the page who's responsible for it. And you don't have to hire a whole training team just to win the deal.

A machinist in safety glasses reads production data on a tablet at a machine control panel, with engineers working behind her.

§09 /

What to do now

Call us.

Got a deal that's been stuck for months? Send it over.

About to buy an expensive technology and it's keeping you up? Same.

We'll tell you who needs to learn what, and what it should say in the contract.

tigerteam@groundandform.com · +1 330 715 3895
groundandform.com · Akron, Ohio

Where the numbers came from Gartner, survey of 1,120 technology buyers · Zylo 2026 SaaS Management Index · Zylo 2025 SaaS Management Index