Measuring The Intangible ROI of Technology Investments & Decisions

 

“How are you planning to measure the ROI on this project?” I asked the CTO of a large enterprise.

“Well, it’s a no-brainer! We will look at the revenues increased and costs saved on operations!” he answered very quickly.

“Is there anything more important than that which this project will deliver?” I wondered.

More I started digging into this question, he started realizing the direction in which I was pointing him. The hidden areas where the solution was going to impact a lot more than he had thought before.

Measuring the ROI is a key part of every investment decision-making process may it be technology investment or non-technology.

But quite often in my initial discussions with the key decision-makers, I find that we have limited it only to financial aspects of the transaction.

No doubt that financial ROI is important in any investment, but there is something more at stake when we are making decisions in any organization, and I call it 

“Intangible ROI”.

In organizations, technology investments/decisions are mostly driven by tangible ROIs.

An increase in profit, increase in revenue, decrease in spend/cost, etc. are very tangible ROIs, which can be measured, compared, and improved.

But some factors of business success are hard to quantify.

From brand recognition to employee loyalty, intangible benefits can have a very real impact on a company’s bottom line.

There is a significant human angle in every organization, its employees, and customers.

Hence your technology decisions and investments have to consider ROI towards employees’ well-being, engagement, productivity, morale, happiness. It should also consider ROIs towards customer retention, loyalty, delight, brand awareness

It is a very well known fact that, If your employees are happy at work, they will deliver more and better. Even then in most of the business technology engagements and decisions(business product purchase, tech service engagement), it’s the tangible ROIs that drive these decisions. The intangible ROIs are considered merely a byproduct.

It is seen that Companies who tend to value these intangible benefits during technology decisions/investments do well in the long term.

‘Technology should simplify people’s lives

‘Culture eats strategy for breakfast

We see these phrases used by a lot of organizations, but how many times do we see that considered when making technology decisions.

Culture is all about the people in the company and how we treat them, and hence the ROI derived from your technology investments has to touch these people.

Look carefully, your new technology decision should also give you one or more of these intangible ROIs.

• Will it save time for your employees in repetitive tasks?
• Will it free up time for them to add more creative value?
• Will it allow them to work remotely in an equally effective manner?
• Increased employee Morale and loyalty?
• Increased Customer Satisfaction?
• Customer Loyalty?
• Increase brand value?

Companies that want to leverage these intangible benefits take an approach that is not always number-driven or quantitative, instead, it is also qualitative.

They listen to their employees and customers to understand what’s in the best interest of their employees, and what will keep their customers happy, which will automatically increase customer loyalty, retention and may bring new business.

At CoreView, we believe in prioritizing these intangible benefits to the customers, during new engagements when offering technology services. 

This helps in taking quick and informed decisions that are better for a wider array of stakeholders.

One such incident where we helped in highlighting intangible benefits to our customers are as follows

– When doing a technology modernization for one of our enterprise customers in the US. The obvious benefits were the customer engagement solutions enabled by the new technology platform. But after detailed discussions, we also realized that their existing employees were tired of the legacy platform, which did not allow them to work on newer tech, and they dreaded the upgrades of the legacy platform which would take multiple weeks or few months together.

We realized a fantastic ROI of this proposed system was the automatic upscaling of their workforce, which was morale-boosting for their employees. It also saved them time and frustration with legacy platform upgrades. The employees felt that the company cares for their frustrations and challenges, and is committed to addressing the issues that pull them back.

When the CEO realized this huge upside of the new tech investment, he aggressively peddled the solution to other stakeholders and closed the deal quickly.

Recently, when the businesses reopened after the pandemic was eased off, CoreView decided to invest in a state-of-the-art office in a premium facility to ensure that the team feels to be out of the scary memories of the pandemic. The team got a high comfort at the workplace as they started visiting the office, easing their stress, and increasing their morale. We are sure this will result in higher productivity and happier customers.

Which Intangible ROIs are you weighing your decisions on?