A practical ROI model for automation investment
How to build a business case for automation that a finance director will approve, without inflating hours-saved figures nobody believes.
Amara Whitfield
Head of Growth Strategy
Why most automation business cases fail
They lead with hours saved. Finance teams discount hours saved heavily and correctly, because saved hours only become value when they are redeployed or removed. A case built on that number alone rarely survives scrutiny.
The three-line model
Build the case on three quantities: revenue effect, cost effect and risk effect. Each needs a stated assumption and a source.
- Revenue effect: conversion or velocity improvement applied to actual pipeline.
- Cost effect: hours saved multiplied by fully loaded cost, discounted realistically.
- Risk effect: reduction in error rate multiplied by average error cost.
Be conservative deliberately
Present the pessimistic case as the headline. Programmes that beat a conservative forecast get funded again; programmes that miss an optimistic one do not, regardless of absolute performance.
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