Measuring Return on Investment (ROI)
for Syntergy Solutions

You have made a significant investment in the OpenText ECM software. Syntergy solutions for OpenText ECM enhance the use, performance and security of your OpenText ECM platform investment.

We frequently get requests related to measuring ROI on Syntergy data loading, re-structuring, migration, synchronization and business process solutions such as Data Manager, Director. Replicator and Workflow enhancements bundle.

This post shows you one of the many ways of measuring ROI by calculating what is the financial impact on your organization by not having an efficiently designed Content Server architecture and infrastructure which is available 7X24X365 to your global user community. In addition, not having up-to-date content and metadata also impacts the user’s ability to efficiently find and search for content to get their job done.

Deployment of OpenText ECM software can enhance the stature, reputation and competiveness of a company or organization in today's highly competitive markets. Initial intranet and extranet deployments are only the first step to a well-planned corporate-wide initiative. A company’s business is based on information sharing between employees and external community. In such cases, even small increases in an individual’s productivity can have a significant overall impact within a knowledge-based information ecosystem. For additional information please reference "The Future of Information: It’s Time to Rethink ECM" Blog by OpenText.

Research shows that employees still spend almost 20% of their work week on average searching for documents (approximately 8 hours per work week). Today, the average salary for Fortune 500 jobs is $60,258* (*SimplyHired.com). As a result, organizations lose over 400 person-hours annually (approximately $11,500 per employee) looking for corporate/project information which leads to lower productivity, poor customer service and lost opportunities. The reasons for this loss in productivity is because projects change, departments get re-organized, your global users are in different time zones and your business needs evolve. Such changes impact the ongoing effectiveness and relevancy of content in your OpenText Content Server impacting the user’s ability to efficiently find and search for content in a timely fashion. ECM systems constantly need to be tweaked and aligned with your evolving business goals.

All organizations have different criteria for measuring ROI for the cost of managing intellectual assets in OpenText Content Server. Each is a factor on the decision to purchase OpenText ECM software and additional value add solutions from OpenText partners such as Syntergy. Typically, the reasons fall into one of three categories:

1. Risk Avoidance: e.g. Regulatory Compliance, Records Management or Litigation Support application.
2. Employee Productivity/Company Competitiveness: e.g. Policies & Procedures, R&D, Customer Support or Competitive Intelligence application.
3. Information for Sale: e.g. library abstracts or services bureau applications.

Here are a couple of very simple examples where significant person-hours are lost by organizations by not having easily findable content in Content Server. If you research and poll your lines of businesses (LOB), I am sure you will find both simple and complex examples related to your implementation. Most organizations on average have 10-20 LOBs that would be stakeholders for a Content Server implementation.

Example 1 (Employee Productivity)

In a large organization the process, an employee goes through for taking Annual Leave:

1. Contact your supervisor
2. Search for the latest Policies and Procedures handbook
3. Contact Human Resources Department if you cannot find the latest version of the handbook
4. Consult handbook to determine policy - Determine approval process
5. Fill out appropriate leave request form
6. Get approval
7. 1 person-hour lost

Example 2 (Risk Avoidance & Employee Productivity)

Preparation for a Board Meeting with up-to-date facts:

1. Need 1-2 slides form someone else's presentation - Search the company Intranet. Call for the person if the information is not available or not current
2. Person unavailable
3. Call anyone else who can assist
4. Re-engineer the slides yourself
5. 1/2 person-day lost
6. Important facts may get lost.

Return on Investment Formula

Here is a simple formula you can use to calculate ROI PAYBACK IN BUSINESS DAYS. To calculate ROI using this formula:

1. You first need to calculate the potential "Annual Cost Savings" to your organization
2. Identify the cost of your investment in software tools, services and training
3. Finally calculate the ROI payback in business days

1. Calculate Potential Annual Cost Savings

   ANNUAL COST SAVINGS =

   (Average User Salary / (2080 Hrs.) x (Hrs. Per Day Searching/Managing Documents) x (260 days) x (Total Users)

2. Calculate ROI Payback in Business Days

   ROI PAYBACK IN BUSINESS DAYS = (Software Investment / Annual Cost Savings) x 260 days

   Note: 2080 hours = 260 working days @ 8 Hours/Day.

ROI Calculation Example

Assumptions:

1. Employee Average Annual Salary $60,000/year
2. Employee spends 2 hours per day searching/managing documents
3. Employee works 260 days per year
4. Software Purchase, Consulting & Training Costs -> $200,000
5. 500 Users

1. Calculate Potential Annual Cost Savings

   $60,000/2080 hrs. x 2 Hours Per Day Searching/Managing Documents x 260 Days x 500 Users = $7,500,000 in ANNUAL COST SAVINGS

2. Calculate ROI Payback in Business Days

   $200,000 / $7,500,000 X 260 = 7 BUSINESS DAYS

Generally, the larger the user community the ROI is dramatic. If the users are spending more time looking for information, the ROI is even more dramatic.

Syntergy provides data moving, re-structuring, synchronization solutions and services for the OpenText ECM software. Contact us at info@syntergy.com or fill out a contact form on our website to schedule a free briefing and assessment of your OpenText ECM platform implementation.