Why Now is The Time to Automate Your Consulting Process
Calculating the ROI of automating your consultancy can help you realize the benefits. Digitization is transforming consulting. Demand for automation talent outweighs supply due to factors such as an aging workforce and minorities underrepresented in the field, and the skills gap is expanding. According to a skills gap report by Deloitte, the next decade will see a ratio of 3.4 million jobs that require automation skills, but only 1. 4 million qualified workers. Consultants can, and should – use this disparity to their advantage. By focusing on automation, consulting companies can deliver the much-needed automation expertise to organizations that are short-staffed in automation skills.
Consulting firms are also turning to automation tools to reduce laborious tasks, speed up time to value and stay ahead of the competition. Consultants who do not prioritize automating their processes will be left behind, and lag significantly in comparison to competitors using automated processes.
According to Grand View Research, the US Consulting Market is set to grow by 10.8% by 2028.
Calculate the ROI of Automating your Consultancy Using Efficiency ROI Calculation
The most straightforward method of calculating test automation ROI is the following formula:
ROI = Gain – Investment ÷ Investment
- Gain: The amount gained by replacing manual processes with automated processes. For example, for consultants calculating automating their consultancy with Olive’s technology, they can include gain factors such as saved hours gathering requirements and ranking requirements, less admin tasks, improved requirements traceability, and less wasting with long-winded RFP documents.
- Investment: The costs funneled into setting up test automation pipelines.
ROI can denote any unit for savings or investment – typically equating to money or time.
Savings
Savings refers to the difference between the costs of running tests manually instead of running those same tests automatically a certain number of times over a certain period. Simply put:
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)
The ROI in Partnership With Olive
Without Olive
( 4 * $80,000 * 50% ) + ( 10 * $80,000 * 5% )
= $200,000 evaluation cost / yr
Assuming
- 4 full time employees @ $80,000 / yr
- Each spends 50% of their time on evaluations or business process transformation,
- Plus 10 stakeholders spend 5% of their time
With Olive
( $200,000 * 66% ) – ( 4 * $300 * 12 + 10 * $30 * 12 )
= $114,000 savings on evaluation cost / yr
Assuming
- 4 Admin licenses & 10 Stakeholder licenses
- 66% less work on evaluations or business process transformation (alternatively: 3x faster time to market)
Understanding the ROI of Automating your Consultancy can help you realize the benefits of Digital Transformation
There are huge gains to be made. Here are just a few reasons why automation is worth the investment.
Time-savings
The first reason automation is worth the investment is obvious: it saves you time. Automation can free up resources, allowing them to escape trivial admin-related tasks to focus on the big-picture and strategy.
Seamlessly capture requirements
For consultants seeking to capture requirements for enterprise software sourcing, the right automation offers an escape from the waterfall requirement gathering process. This is because finding the right software via the traditional route is a long and arduous process. Instead of trawling through endless spreadsheets, use a collaborative requirements management tool, such as Olive, to improve and shorten your process – so you and your team can work on the things that matter.
Allows you to do more with less
Automating your consultancy can help you do more with fewer resources. This may mean you can take on more clients with the same amount of existing resources.
Strengthens your business strategy and offers a differentiator
Today’s business strategy is technology-enabled, so consultants need to leverage technology to inform strategy. When technology is used correctly, it can help companies achieve their goals and deliver measurable results. If automation is an integral part of business strategy, exponential growth will occur.
Automation reduces time to value
Traditionally, identifying the right stakeholders is a painstakingly long process, including interviewing & surveying stakeholders, shadowing them to understand their perspective, pain points, needs, and wants. This information is manually tracked in word docs, spreadsheets, or project management tools. The result is countless meetings, resulting in misalignment of expectations and a lack of forward thinking. Automation simplifies this process. Using the right automation software that facilitates easier collaboration can make this process more streamlined and far less monotonous.
Acknowledgements
ROI in IT projects: How to measure efficiency of an investment in IT systems | Programa™