Anybody thinking of a Stones song?
I digress.
Very early in my career I was presenting the ROI of our original T-Trax product to a prospective customer, showing the time savings our solution could achieve for their route salespeople. A dollar amount was then calculated as the annual savings. The customer then turned to me and said “You know, those aren’t REAL dollars”. Being inexperienced, I conceded. Looking back, there are multiple arguments as to why he was wrong.
The inputs are:
- 30 seconds per stop
- 12 stops per day
- $40k per year compensation
The results are:
- 6 minutes per day
- 126 minutes per month
- 25 hours per year
- $500 per year per route
- $0.33 cost per second
Argument 1 – Scale
If time savings were 4 minutes per stop, would 200 hours/$4000 per year be “Real”. It is even more dramatic when extended over 50 routes: 10,000 hours / $200,000.
Argument 2 – Attrition
Each employee will notice that their working day is 5-10 minutes shorter. This is a bonus that may prevent attrition costs that can be very expensive.
Argument 3 – Usage
This is the most persuasive argument. What will you do with the extra time? Add end-of-day inventory count to reduce shrinkage? Spend more time with customer relationships? Cultivate new accounts? The list goes on.
Bottom Line – Time On your Side
Any time savings is only worth what you do with it. Be it 1 minute or 1 hour. Just because you do not know what to do with it, time savings are always a benefit and should be sought with a vigor proportional to the cost.