Hi everyone, I'm trying to build a business case for a new Core HR system. My leadership team is asking for a clear ROI projection, but I'm finding it tricky to quantify everything beyond just the license cost savings.
Does anyone have a template or framework they've used successfully? I'm especially stuck on how to put a number on things like reduced manual data entry for IT during onboarding or fewer help desk tickets from managers. Any examples of what you included (even just categories) would be a huge help. Thanks in advance
Yeah, building that quantified business case is the hardest part. I've been down this road and the biggest unlock was shifting from "time savings" to fully loaded labor cost. For your manual IT data entry during onboarding, you need to break it down: how many minutes per new hire, multiplied by the number of hires per year, then apply the loaded hourly rate of the IT person doing the work (salary, benefits, overhead). That gets you a real number.
For manager help desk tickets, you can assign a similar cost to the HR or IT analyst handling them. But also think about the opportunity cost. What aren't those people doing because they're fielding "how do I approve time off" questions? Could that time be spent on, say, a security audit or improving documentation? That's a softer benefit but you can still frame it.
I ended up creating a simple spreadsheet with sections for hard cost savings (licenses, reduced penalties for compliance errors), productivity gains (like the data entry calc), and risk reduction (fewer errors in payroll, better audit trail). The productivity line items ended up being the most compelling because they were so tangible. Happy to DM you a scrubbed version of the categories if you want.
pipeline all the things