What is a “Champion” - And Why We Named Our Company for It

At its core, a champion is someone inside an organization who cares deeply, who takes ownership, who drives change. Maybe you’ve heard of an “eco-champion” pushing your company into more sustainable practices, or a “digital champion” advocating for automation and smarter workflows. These champions don’t just use tools - they evangelize, guide, embed, and sustain them.

In the same way, at Champion1 we think of champions in the realm of your business applications. We believe your line-of-business systems (ERP, CRM, integration dashboards, legacy applications, custom platforms, etc) are the digital lifeblood of what you do. They span mission-critical to business-enhancing, data-visualizing to process-automating. And when those systems stop working, or under-perform, or drift without governance, the impact is real: downtime is money, cyber risk is real, productivity declines, and your ROI suffers.

That’s why we named our company Champion1. We offer you a single, dedicated partner, the “1”, who becomes the product champion for the tools you elect us to manage. We step in and accept ownership: supporting your stack day-to-day, guiding tool on-boarding or integrations, advising lifespan optimization, maximizing ROI, controlling total cost of ownership (TCO), eliminating hidden waste, and making sure the tools you have are fully utilized.

The Problem Many Companies Live With

Imagine this: You have a key internal application expert. They keep your system running, manage configurations, answer user questions, and drive feature adoption. One day they leave: for retirement, parental leave, another job. Suddenly you have no champion. That keyman risk is real. The knowledge they held walks out the door. Your system continues, but with no one watching, no one refining, no one pushing it forward. The vendor’s software is still live, but the value is lower. The updates stack up. Integrations degrade. Users stop asking because someone else has to fix it.

This is not hypothetical. The risk of depending on a single individual for critical operations is widely documented. “Key-person risk” or “key man risk” describes the negative impact when organizations rely heavily on individuals whose knowledge, relationships or responsibilities cannot easily be replaced. One recent whitepaper describes how key person dependency can tip into full business-continuity events when that individual is suddenly unavailable.

Here’s another dimension: many businesses adopt software tools but only scratch the surface of their potential. For example, one report found that 53% of SaaS licenses go unused, costing companies millions in wasted spend. Without someone championing their use, integrations, training, optimizations and updates, tools lapse into under-utilization and value leakage.

Why Having a Champion Matters

When you engage Champion1 as your application champion, you’re plugging in a role that many organizations gloss over: the management, evolution, and enablement of your software ecosystem. Here are just a few of the benefits:

1. Continuity & Risk Mitigation
With us as your champion, you no longer rely on a single internal individual to keep things moving. Our role covers support, updates, integrations, training and documentation. When your key person is unavailable, you’re covered. As one report warns, the cost of replacing a high-knowledge person may range from 93% to 200% of their annual salary.

2. Maximized ROI and Reduced Waste
We evaluate your software stack, application inter-dependencies, license usage, and integrations - helping you extract more from what you already bought, rather than constantly buying new tools because old ones weren’t fully used. With over half of licenses going unused in some companies, the intervention of a champion role becomes compelling.

3. Improved Training, Adoption & Performance
When no one is responsible for driving adoption and training, tools stall. We build training programs, documentation, help systems, and champion your internal teams so the user base is empowered, not frustrated. Your people spend less time stuck and more time producing.

4. Strategic Evolution Rather than Reactive Patching
Instead of only reacting to bugs or outages, we proactively roadmap, integrate, modernize, retire or replace systems when needed, making sure your stack remains alive, secure, performant and aligned with the business. That kind of discipline matters in an era of growing software spend.

5. Unified Support, Fewer Silos
We provide a single partner for all your application domains - legacy, SaaS, custom, integration. That means one governance model, one roadmap, one team accountable. You don’t have to juggle multiple vendors, hand-offs, or unknowns.

How a Champion Role Works in Practice

Here’s a story to illustrate:
A mid-sized distribution company had grown to using multiple ERPs, a CRM, a warehouse management system, and various reporting tools. The internal “champion” left unexpectedly, leaving no clear hand-off. Updates were delayed, users were complaining, integrations broke, and renewal costs were rising. They engaged Champion1. We stepped in as their application champion: we audited the stack, created a unified roadmap, built training and documentation, optimized licenses, and integrated disparate systems into a central dashboard. Six months later: user satisfaction went up, license waste dropped, downtime decreased - and the business gained back control it never had fully.

Another scenario: a fast-growing SaaS business wanted to keep their internal champion but knew that as they scaled they’d need support for deeper integrations, data visualization, and legacy platform modernization. We developed a program to train and enable that internal person, built the documentation systems and workflows, and provided “level-2” support and development so the internal champion wasn’t overwhelmed. They got internal capability plus external backbone - a hybrid model of championing.

Why We Called Ourselves “Champion1”

Because we become the singular partner who champions your application ecosystem - the tools, the people, the processes. The “1” signals one partner, one point of accountability, one trusted team. We are both advocate and operator, driving your software stack forward while you maintain focus on your core business.

We pick up where many organizations stop: beyond “install and forget,” beyond “support only when something breaks.” We champion your tools for you - evolving them, integrating them, training your people, and ensuring your investment is fully realized.

Final Thoughts: Your Software Needs a Champion

If your business is grappling with any of the following, you’re already in the territory of needing an application champion:

• You have a single internal person key to your software but no backup or documentation if they leave.
• Your tools sit largely unused, you have many licenses but few users, or no clear training pathway.
• Integrations are ad-hoc or unsupported, you lack a roadmap for your stack.
• Your downtime or user complaint volume is creeping up, and you feel like you’re firefighting rather than proactively improving.
• You’re buying new tools when existing ones could be better used or integrated - spending more because you’re not maximizing what you already have.

Champion1 is built for you. Whether you want us to be your long-term partner, develop your internal champion, or serve as a hybrid support arm, we offer one consistent promise: your software stack will have the advocacy, structure, continuity, and enablement it deserves.

Let’s champion your applications together.