- Sheridan, Wyoming, US
- [email protected]
- Call Us Anytime+123 (4567) 890
- Email Us[email protected]
- Opening HourMon - Sat 8:00 - 6:30, Sunday - CLOSED
Get latest update for our trusted applications
ROI Model
If we cannot show you the payback, we should not be sending you an invoice.
This page explains exactly how we calculate return, what we are prepared to put at risk, and the assumptions we refuse to include even when they would flatter the case. It is deliberately more conservative than the numbers you will see elsewhere in our industry.
< 12 mo
paybackTarget payback period on every engagement
30%
fee at riskAvailable on outcome-based engagements
0
soft benefitsCounted in the payback calculation
Four inputs, and nowhere to hide.
Business cases in technology are usually inflated by three habits: counting benefits that cannot be traced to a ledger, assuming that everything works at once, and ignoring the internal cost of the client's own people. We remove all three, which produces a smaller number that survives contact with a chief financial officer. The adoption factor is the input most vendors omit entirely — a system used by 60% of intended users returns roughly 60% of its modelled benefit, which is why adoption is a design deliverable rather than a training afterthought.
Benefits we will and will not put in the model.
Everything on the left can be traced to a ledger, a timesheet or a system log. Everything on the right may well be real, and we still keep it out of the payback calculation.
- 01Revenue traceable to recovered or converted demand
- 02Contracted cost removed: licences, vendors, overtime
- 03Labour hours verified against timesheets or system logs
- 04Losses avoided with a measured historical rate
- 05Working capital released, at your cost of capital
- 01Improved morale and employee satisfaction
- 02Better decision-making in the abstract
- 03Brand perception and market positioning
- 04Future optionality and platform readiness
- 05Productivity gains with no measurable output change
Soft benefits appear in our proposals as commentary, never as arithmetic. If the payback only works when morale is monetised, the payback does not work.
Three ways to buy, one of which puts our fee at risk.
Fixed scope
Defined deliverables, fixed fee, agreed change process. Appropriate where the outcome depends heavily on decisions outside our control.
Outcome-linked
A defined portion of our fee depends on the agreed metric moving. Requires a clean baseline and a metric we can both trust.
Embedded team
A dedicated squad working to your priorities under our delivery standards, reported against the same value model as any project.
A real payback calculation, with the unflattering lines included.
Voice AI deployment for a property group. Figures rounded, client anonymised, methodology unchanged.
Three details matter more than the result. First, the adoption factor of 0.7 reduced the modelled benefit by nearly a third before we quoted anything. Second, the client's own internal cost is included in the investment line, because their people's time is not free. Third, the historical conversion rate came from their records, not our optimism.
The actual outcome after twelve months exceeded the model, largely because response speed improved conversion on calls that were previously answered too. We did not include that in the forecast, because we could not defend it in advance.
4.1 mo
modelledPayback period in the business case
3.4 mo
actualPayback achieved after deployment
Three rules we apply to our own business cases.
RULE 01
Under twelve months, or we explain why not
Every engagement targets payback inside a year. Where a longer horizon is genuinely justified — platform work, regulatory programmes — we state it plainly rather than manufacturing near-term benefit to hit a number.
RULE 02
Your discount rate, not ours
We model using your cost of capital and your finance team's conventions. A business case that only works under favourable assumptions is a sales document, not an investment analysis.
RULE 03
The recommendation to stop
About one assessment in five concludes that the return does not justify the work. We write that down and send it. It is the only credible way to be trusted on the other four.
4.1 mo
Median modelled paybackAcross engagements with a hard benefit line
30%
Fee at risk availableOn outcome-linked engagements
1 in 5
Assessments recommend stoppingWhere the return does not justify the work
What finance leaders ask.
- 01. Will you guarantee the return?We will contract a portion of our fee against the metric, which is as close to a guarantee as anyone honest can offer. We cannot guarantee outcomes that depend on your team's adoption and decisions, and we will not pretend otherwise.
- 02. Why is your business case smaller than your competitors'?Because we exclude soft benefits, apply an adoption factor and include your internal cost. Our numbers are designed to survive a post-implementation review rather than to win a procurement decision.
- 03. How do you handle benefits that appear in year two?We show them separately from the payback calculation and discount them at your cost of capital. Payback is calculated on near-term, hard benefit only.
- 04. What if our finance team disputes the baseline?Then we have not finished. The baseline must be one your finance function will defend, because it is the number the whole engagement is measured against. Disagreement at this stage is useful, not inconvenient.
Where to go next.
Let us build the business case with your finance team.
The value assessment produces a payback model using your baselines, your conversion rates and your cost of capital. You keep it regardless of what you decide.
