Realizing ROI with Productivity Increases

When any UC solution is being introduced, an increase in productivity is one major selling point. How this increase in productivity influences ROI can be more difficult to calculate. Productivity increases are often referred to as soft costs, meaning that you cannot put a definitive dollar amount next to them. However, it is practical to make educated estimates based off of common scenarios that result in productivity increases. After the solution is deployed and used, it is possible to monitor usage and identify hard productivity cost savings.

A key scenario in which productivity increases can translate directly to dollar amounts is the task of checking voice mail. When you consider the process for listening to voice mail on a legacy voice mail system, it becomes clear how tedious this process is. Assume that you have a billable resource. This resource makes the company money at $300 per hour. If it takes that person three minutes per day to listen to his voice mail, it seems to be a small cost (under $2 per day). However, you must now multiply that number by all resources in your organization, say 10,000 users. That quickly turns into $20,000 dollars per day, or $100,000 per week.

When evaluating UC ROI, organizations should also consider time that is wasted for travel. Many organizations have resources that must travel to and from the office, as well as to and from clients. If you were to use similar logic as that used previously with a resource that can make the company $300 per hour, removing that travel time and replacing it with billable work will save the company money. Many organizations will charge customers travel time for such resources; however, if a business no longer has to charge for travel because moneymaking resources can work remotely with UC, that organization is now more attractive to do business with.

UC Presence makes it possible for users to spend less time on common tasks and allows users to increase productivity in many other areas. When users have the real-time availability for their peers, their communications are more efficient, less time is lost, and similar logic to that used previously can be applied to calculate soft cost savings.