Enterprise Guide to Measuring Automation ROI: Beyond Cost Savings

Most organisations are leaving value on the table when it comes to their automation investments. They focus on the most obvious and easy-to-measure benefit—cost savings—while ignoring a wealth of other tangible and intangible benefits that can deliver a far greater return on investment. This narrow, cost-centric view of ROI not only undervalues the true impact of automation, but it can also lead to poor investment decisions. This article provides a more holistic framework for measuring the full business value of automation, helping you to build a more compelling business case and maximise the return on your automation investments.

The Limitations of a Cost-Centric ROI Model

The traditional approach to measuring automation ROI is simple: calculate the reduction in labour costs and compare it to the cost of the automation solution. While this is a useful starting point, it is a dangerously incomplete picture. A cost-centric model ignores the wider strategic benefits of automation, such as increased revenue, improved customer experience, and enhanced agility. By focusing solely on cost, you risk underinvesting in automation or, worse, investing in the wrong kind of automation—siloed, task-based solutions that deliver incremental cost savings but fail to drive real transformation.

A Holistic Framework for Measuring Automation ROI

A more effective approach is to adopt a holistic framework that captures the full spectrum of automation benefits. This includes:

Tangible Benefits:

• Cost Savings: This is the traditional focus of ROI, and it remains important. Look beyond simple headcount reduction to include lower error rates, reduced compliance costs, and lower infrastructure costs.
• Revenue Growth: Automation can be a powerful driver of top-line growth. Consider the impact of increased sales from faster lead response times, improved customer retention from a better customer experience, and faster time to market for new products and services.
• Productivity Gains: Automation can deliver significant productivity improvements. Measure the impact of increased output, faster cycle times, and improved resource utilisation.

Intangible Benefits:

• Improved Customer Experience: A better customer experience can lead to increased loyalty, higher lifetime value, and a stronger brand reputation. While harder to quantify, the impact on the bottom line can be significant.
• Enhanced Employee Experience: Automation can free up your people from mundane, repetitive tasks, allowing them to focus on more creative, strategic, and fulfilling work. This can lead to higher employee morale, lower turnover, and increased innovation.
• Improved Decision-Making: AI-powered automation can provide better access to data and more accurate insights, leading to faster, more effective decision-making.
• Increased Agility and Resilience: In a rapidly changing world, the ability to adapt quickly is a key competitive advantage. Automation can make your organisation more agile and resilient, reducing operational risk and enabling you to respond more effectively to market changes.

How to Measure the Intangible Benefits

Quantifying the intangible benefits of automation can be challenging, but it is not impossible. Here are some practical tips:

• Use surveys and feedback mechanisms to measure customer and employee satisfaction before and after an automation project.
• Use proxy metrics to estimate the financial impact of intangible benefits. For example, you can calculate the cost of employee turnover and then model the impact of a reduction in turnover due to automation.
• Use business cases and value engineering to model the potential financial impact of improved decision-making and agility.

The Role of IBM watsonx Orchestrate in Maximising ROI

IBM watsonx Orchestrate is designed to help you maximise the ROI of your automation investments. Its focus on end-to-end process orchestration delivers a much higher return than siloed task automation. Its AI-powered decisioning capabilities improve the quality and speed of decision-making, while its personalised digital assistants empower every employee to be more productive and innovative.

Aligne’s Expertise: Your Partner in Value Realisation

Aligne can help you build a compelling business case for automation and measure the full ROI of your investments. Our services include:

• ROI analysis and business case development: We’ll work with you to build a robust business case that captures the full value of your proposed automation project.
• Value realisation workshops: We’ll help you identify and quantify the tangible and intangible benefits of automation.
• Implementation of IBM watsonx Orchestrate: We’ll help you implement and configure watsonx Orchestrate to deliver the maximum possible ROI.

Conclusion: A New Perspective on Automation Value

It’s time to move beyond a narrow, cost-centric view of automation ROI. By adopting a more holistic approach, you can build a more compelling business case for automation, make better investment decisions, and unlock the full transformative potential of the technology. The organisations that take this broader view of value will be the ones that win in the age of AI.

Book an ROI assessment with Aligne.

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