The reason it beats every other candidate is the failure it prevents. Most tools improve something. A password manager removes an entire category of business ending event, and it does so for a cost that is usually zero or close to it at small scale. Nothing else on a typical stack has that ratio.
The mechanism is worth stating because it changes how the tool is understood. Credentials leak constantly from services you have used, and attackers try those combinations against everything else automatically. If your email password is unique, a breach elsewhere is irrelevant to you. If it is reused, one leak reaches your bank, your domain, your payment processing, and your customer data.
The reason unique passwords are rare is that remembering them is impossible, which is exactly the problem a manager solves. You remember one, it generates and stores the rest, and the practice that was theoretically correct becomes practically achievable. That is the whole value proposition and it is sufficient.
The secondary benefits are substantial and less discussed. An inventory of every account you have, which most businesses cannot produce. A way to share credentials with somebody without sending them in a message. Secure storage for the two factor codes and the recovery keys people otherwise lose. And emergency access, so a business does not stop because one person is unreachable.
Set up the critical accounts first rather than importing everything, since a migration that stalls halfway leaves you worse off than before. Email first, because it is the reset mechanism for everything else, then banking, then your domain and hosting, then payment processing. Add the rest as you encounter them in normal use.
Turn on two factor authentication as you go, since the manager makes it manageable. Storing the second factor alongside the credential removes the friction that stops people enabling it, and that combination is what actually protects an account rather than either alone.
Configure emergency access at the same time, which almost nobody does. Designating somebody who can request entry after a waiting period means an illness or an accident is an inconvenience rather than a business interruption. It takes minutes and it is the least interesting item on any security list that most deserves attention.
Then change anything that was previously reused or shared unsafely, because migrating without rotating imports the exposure into the new system. Credentials that sat in message histories and shared documents are still out there, and the manager only protects what it generated.
Choose one that supports sharing and emergency access rather than the cheapest option, since those two features are what distinguish a business tool from a personal one. Both matter the moment anybody else is involved or you are unavailable.
Audit what is in it annually, because it accumulates credentials for services nobody uses and for accounts that were closed. Removing those reduces what is exposed if anything goes wrong and frequently surfaces subscriptions you forgot you were paying for.
Introduce it to anybody else in the business at the same time, since the protection depends on everybody using it rather than on the tool existing. One person with reused passwords undermines the arrangement for the accounts they can reach.
Start today rather than scheduling it, since the entire value is preventing something that happens without warning and a plan to set it up next month provides nothing this month.