If you’re in charge of buying business software, IT, or backing a group interested in understanding the value of technology. You’re likely to be familiar with the concept of Return on Investment (ROI) about these acquisitions.
The Importance of Tech Stack Return on Investment in Digital Transformation
Grasping the ROI of your technology infrastructure can assist in pinpointing which technology investments are generating business benefits and which are draining resources from your innovation funds. Being aware of the areas where you’re losing money on solutions with low user engagement or leading to issues across different departments can uncover chances to release funds for solutions that propel digital change.
The Importance of Understanding Your Tech Stack’s Return on Investment
ROI stands as one of the most overused and contradictory measures for assessing the value of technology purchases. This is contradictory because it’s often challenging to predict the future benefits of spending money on technology. Yet, this doesn’t deter people from attempting it, and it does assist in making decisions about which technologies to use. Despite its shortcomings, not having it means you’re making purchases blindly.
Digital transformation involves selecting the most suitable technology to fulfil your business’s requirements in partnership with important stakeholders. Regrettably, this search for solutions has become complicated due to high costs, lengthy timelines, and clear agendas. The recent pandemic has accelerated digital transformation. With fears of recession and inflation at record levels, IT leaders understand that navigating this crisis demands innovation. Yet, in numerous instances, CIOs and technology departments prefer to stick with old systems instead of actively seeking the best solutions.
In the software sector, advancements are streamlining operations and helping businesses save billions. Surprisingly, the method of purchasing technology has remained unchanged until recently. Numerous companies continue to select technology solutions based on popular brands or top-rated reviews, rather than on their alignment with the organization’s requirements.
Improve the ROI of Your Tech Stack by Identifying Solutions That Accelerate Digital Transformation
Most people recognise the fear that consumers have, and the wide range of dangers involved. It’s important to understand that numerous CIOs, digital transformation advisors, and executives risk their reputations when selecting solutions for their technology infrastructure. This goes beyond personal risk, encompassing various business risks in terms of finances, operations, and efficiency.
The complicated process often results in shortcuts being taken and frustrations mounting. Yet, every step is crucial and must be meticulously managed. Take the necessary time to identify your requirements and gather the opinions of key stakeholders. After outlining your needs, establish criteria and limitations for budgets and capabilities. At this point, you’re prepared to compile a list of potential suppliers, narrow down your choices, and issue Request for Proposals (RFPs).
Organize demonstrations for the options you’re considering with colleagues from your company and assess them according to your needs. Through this comprehensive approach, you’re in a position to make a decision and proceed with signing contracts and implementing the solutions. Surprisingly, we’ve had clients who remember a gruelling 2+ year process in assessing technology solutions, only to find themselves still not fully satisfied. What was the cost of that ordeal?
Efficiently Assess Tech Solutions to Enhance Your Return on Investment
The human resources engaged in a lengthy and ineffective process significantly diminish the potential return on investment.
The expenses related to repairing, integrating, and deploying are excessive before even considering the ongoing negative effects of poor decisions. The troubles are simply not suitable for the modern era, and many clients are clearly ‘fed up’ with the persistent process. It is important to make sure you discover solutions that are free from bias or evaluation exhaustion. Your goal is to make the process more efficient and speed up digital transformation so that in the end, your hard work delivers greater ROI from your tech stack.
Here are a few ways improving these aspects can enhance the return on investment for your technology stack:
1) Sales Boost: Lower expenses decrease prices, and a powerful technology framework significantly enhances customer contentment and experience by simplifying the buying process and increasing functionality.
2) Team Perks: Efficiency rises due to automating small jobs, or better still transforming automatic jobs into autonomous ones. In the same way, motivation and creativity go up because of less irritation caused by outdated technology.
3) Forecasting: Often neglected are the advantages of precise tech stack data analytics. Detailed control data reports reveal inefficiencies, consumer likes, and market movements, placing you in a strategic position to make well-informed choices ahead.
How to Calculate the ROI of Technology Investments
The most straightforward method of calculating test automation ROI is the following formula:
ROI = Gain – Investment ÷ Investment
Gain: The value obtained by switching from manual to automated methods. For instance, when consultants recommend moving to wholly autonomous marketing solutions, they can factor in benefits like eliminating the entire cost of staff, and with AI solutions enjoy enhanced tracking with zero errors and omissions.
Investment: The costs funnelled into setting up test automation pipelines.
ROI can denote any unit for savings or investment – typically equating to money or time.
Savings
Savings are the amount left over after subtracting the expenses of conducting tests by hand from the expenses of conducting the same tests automatically multiple times within a specific timeframe. In simpler terms:
Savings = (time to run a single manual test – time to run the same test in automation) X number of tests X number of test runs)
How to Calculate the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) on your Tech Stack
CIO.com states that TCO plays a crucial role in determining the Return on Investment (ROI) for business software. The Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for business software includes all direct and indirect expenses associated with the software and is an essential component of the ROI calculation. Regrettably, TCO is frequently overlooked or undervalued.
When calculating ROI, include TCO costs that can be incurred by your solutions;
Software
Costs per license.
The number of licenses that will be needed in the future with expected growth. Off-the-shelf software usually has an up-front software cost plus user licenses. Remember to include any finance charges.
Hardware
Costs like servers and storage to run the software and other expenses like backup and disaster recovery. (This does not apply to cloud software)
Implementation
Any costs associated with the implementation. Setting up, configuring, and testing software so it can be used in production. Cost of training initiatives and employee support. With custom software, the configuration is usually part of development.
Data migration
The cost of moving data from the old to the new system, including data format changes. Often this is not economically viable, so the old system is archived in a read-only mode.
Identify Technology That Will Transform Your Business and Your Bottom Line
Building your tech stack can seem daunting, filled with possible obstacles and dangers. The investment of time itself poses a financial risk and can alienate various departments. Yet, when your company selects the appropriate solutions together with the whole team, in a shorter timeframe, the outcomes can significantly boost the return on investment for your tech stack.
We’ve all heard that vendors overestimate their capabilities to market comparison evaluators who only recommend vendors based on commissions, even if a better solution exists. The task of conducting a need analysis, exploring the market, and securing reliable options for technology evaluation is tough, but it’s essential to discover the solutions that will revolutionize your business and increase your profits.
Avoid any possible sales pitfalls and pinpoint the perfect solutions without wasting your efforts. Should they not align with your requirements, you save yourself the hassle, expense, and effort of discovering this mismatch after the fact, as they fail to meet your business needs.
It should be straightforward. Your enduring success should be the main focus of your digital transformation plan, and we are committed to helping you achieve this objective. You have distinct requirements, and ensure you are partnering with someone who advocates for your best interests, tailored to what is best for your business!
We offer meticulously managed AI, machine-learning hyper-personalisation software for ecommerce email marketing, which is wholly autonomous.
See article: The distinctions between the top 30 hyper-personalisation software providers.
