Cost Justifying ROI for Mobile Solutions

Presenting a business case with a solid ROI for a mobile strategy in helping workers do business better is sometimes difficult to do. Cost-justifying mobile solutions is not a simple mathematical formula as there are many factors you need to include in properly assessing mobility.



When dealing with ROI, there are the hard costs and savings that need to be assessed. For costs, these include the actual cost of new devices and applications and the network and service costs in maintaining the equipment. For savings, you should also include the reductions in any operational or infrastructure costs that may result including possible savings in reduced staff.

A very important part of the ROI that should be included is the proper costs both dollars and personnel in deploying wireless equipment, the time and cost in properly training mobile workers and the amount of work needed in the change management for introducing new technology and services. In project terms, it is the scope, time and cost of the project. It is imperative that organizations understand that there are changes to your work process when introducing mobile solutions and these should be properly determined and managed.

It gets tricky when trying to incorporate 'soft' savings to justify investment in mobile solutions. To be sure, there are savings in increased productivity, improved customer satisfaction and better data quality (reduced human error). There is also employee satisfaction in having the right tools available to do business when mobile and staff retention. Some organizations have calculated increased revenues with reducing 'dead time' for traveling, better collaboration in working remotely, faster decision-making and being able to reduce customer complaints faster. But to incorporate these soft savings in an ROI might be difficult to substantiate. It's certainly good to have this as support in your business case but it is harder to quantify.

For a sufficient ROI payback, consider 18 to 24 months as viable. There are increased revenues and cost savings with adopting new mobile technologies into the workplace and this has been true across vertical markets as mobility is on the rise. However, you need a detailed business rationale for adopting mobile solutions and a detailed ROI and business case is needed in most cases.

It is suggested that the total DNA costs (device, network and application) be understood and included in the ROI. The mobile devices include the physical equipment and yearly maintenance and service costs. The network should include all the wireless charges of the service provider (their contracts are historically difficult to decipher but necessary). And the application should be inclusive of training and support. Careful analysis of all these costs will ensure a proper ROI for your company.