- Technology
- Field Service
- Mobile Workforce Management
- ROI formula
- Calculating costs and benefits
- Calculate software ROI: step by step
- Evaluating the case for Skedulo
A workforce platform can reduce scheduling effort, improve capacity and change the cost of delivering service. The business case needs to show which of those benefits your operation can realize, when they will arrive and what the change will cost.
Use this guide to build a model from your own operating data. Separate cash savings from capacity gains, test uncertain assumptions and include the work required to implement and adopt the software.
ROI formula
Return on investment compares the financial benefit of an investment with its cost over a defined period. Expressed as a percentage:
ROI = (Total financial benefits - Total costs) / Total costs x 100
Use the same time period for benefits and costs. The Skedulo ROI Calculator can provide a starting point for a scenario; validate its inputs and assumptions against your records before using the result in a business case.
Calculating costs and benefits
Start with the operational changes you expect the software to support. Group them so the same benefit is not counted twice:
- Customer service: Repeat visits, complaints, renewals and customer retention.
- Employee experience: Scheduling effort, administrative time, workload and retention.
- Operations: Travel, overtime, utilization, service quality and completed work.
- Growth: Capacity for additional demand, regions or service types.
A reduction in paid overtime may produce cash savings. Time released from scheduling may create capacity without reducing payroll. Additional appointments may generate revenue, but their contribution depends on the cost of providing them.
Track service quality and employee experience alongside the financial model. When assigning a financial value to an uncertain benefit:
- Use your own baseline where available. Label external benchmarks with their source, date and relevance.
- State the proposed mechanism, such as fewer last-minute schedule changes, and the evidence connecting it to the expected benefit.
- Model a range rather than presenting one retention or productivity improvement as certain.
- Record dependencies and overlaps. Do not count the same released hour as both a staffing saving and capacity for additional work.
Calculate software ROI: step by step
Build a model that can be checked after implementation, with a named owner for each assumption and measure.
- Set the evaluation period and decision criteria before estimating benefits.
- Define the measures: Choose the operational changes the investment is intended to support, such as less travel, fewer repeat visits or reduced scheduling effort.
- Establish the baseline: Use a representative period and record differences by region, service and workforce group. Note seasonal demand or other changes that could affect comparisons.
- Forecast improvements: Use pilot results, relevant customer evidence or clearly labeled assumptions. Model conservative, expected and higher-benefit scenarios.
- Value the changes: Separate realized cost reductions, additional contribution from sales and released staff capacity. Explain how each estimate becomes a financial benefit.
- Include total costs: Account for subscriptions, implementation, integrations, data preparation, training, internal project time and ongoing administration.
- Compare over time: Allow for rollout and adoption before assuming full benefits. Show the timing of costs and benefits as well as the total.
- Review actual performance: Compare the same measures after rollout, investigate differences and update the forecast.
Customer service
Job history, accurate requirements and access to technical information can help a technician arrive prepared. Measure whether that reduces repeat visits or time spent seeking information.
The financial effect depends on your service model. A repeat visit under a fixed-price contract adds cost; improved renewal rates may affect future revenue. Use your own contract and customer data to estimate either benefit.
Potential measures include:
- First-time resolution: Compare repeat visits for the same issue and include the associated travel, labor and parts costs.
- Arrival reliability: Measure performance against the promised window and track the reasons for missed appointments.
- Service preparation: Record visits delayed by missing information, equipment or an incorrect skill match.
- Customer retention: Compare renewal or repeat-purchase behavior over an appropriate period, accounting for price and service changes.
Employee time and retention
Poor tools can add administrative work and make schedules difficult to manage. Employee feedback can identify those problems, but it does not by itself establish how much turnover a new system will prevent.
Illustrative scenario: A company with 120 technicians and 20% annual turnover replaces 24 people a year. At an assumed replacement cost of $50,000 each, that is $1.2 million. Reducing turnover to 15% would mean six fewer replacements and $300,000 less in modeled replacement costs. This is a potential benefit before software and implementation costs, not an ROI percentage or a predicted result.
Check what the replacement-cost estimate contains, including recruitment, training and time spent by existing staff. Avoid also counting those same hours under productivity benefits.
Assess the proposed changes through:
- Schedule quality: Track late changes, overtime and how well assignments reflect availability and agreed working hours.
- Access to information: Measure time spent searching for job details or contacting colleagues for missing information.
- Workload distribution: Compare assignments, travel and unfilled work across teams rather than relying only on an average utilization figure.
- Travel: Measure driving time and distance for comparable work, including any effect on paid hours and vehicle costs.
Operational costs and capacity
Scheduling, travel and administration are measurable sources of cost. Establish the baseline before estimating what automation or a new allocation policy could change.
Illustrative scenario: At 150 appointments a month and $300 per appointment, monthly revenue is $45,000. Completing 8% more appointments adds 12 per month, or $43,200 in annual revenue, if demand exists and the price is maintained. Calculate the additional delivery costs before treating any of that revenue as a financial benefit.
Areas to assess include:
- Released capacity: Measure time saved on travel, administration or scheduling, then state how the operation will use it.
- Scheduling effort: Compare the staff time required to create, change and communicate schedules for a similar volume of work.
- Corrections and rework: Track duplicate entry, incorrect allocations and incomplete records, with the time or expense required to resolve them.
- Optimization: Test scheduling objectives and constraints against representative demand. Compare the proposed schedules with the baseline for travel, capacity and service commitments.
- Operating expense: Separate actual reductions in overtime, fuel, external support or software costs from gains that create capacity without reducing expenditure.
Compare the proposed investment with a realistic alternative, including the cost of maintaining existing systems and processes. Avoid assuming all current inefficiency can be removed by software.
48% less scheduling time reported in Skedulo's published customer research.
27% more jobs completed reported in Skedulo's published customer research.
20% higher resource utilization reported in Skedulo's published customer research.
Growth and system costs
Additional capacity has value when there is demand the business can serve. Model the work available, the price and margin, and any extra staffing, equipment or administration it requires.
Test the system against the expected operating scale: regions, workers, job volumes, scheduling rules and integrations. Include the cost of supporting that scale in the business case.
Assess security and information handling separately with the responsible teams. Better access controls or records may address a known risk, but do not convert a general breach-cost figure into an assumed saving.
Other factors may include:
- Governance: Check how credentials, required approvals and work records are maintained. Evaluate the evidence needed for your obligations; software does not guarantee compliance or remove liability.
- Planning data: Assess whether consistent job and workforce records improve demand analysis and capacity decisions. Test data quality and reporting effort.
- System consolidation: Identify tools that can genuinely be retired, including their contracts, migration costs and dependencies. Do not assume a platform replaces every connected system.
- Additional work: Model the contribution from new appointments or services after delivery costs, and account for the capacity already counted elsewhere.
Evaluating the case for Skedulo
Skedulo combines scheduling, mobile work and our Pulse Platform. A business case can assess the effect of allocation and route optimization, less manual scheduling, mobile access to job information and connected operational records.
The following results appear in Skedulo's published customer research and stories. They describe those customers' experiences, not forecasts for a new deployment:
- 8% increase in customer satisfaction scores, with customers like Rocket Fiber improving customer satisfaction by 68%
- 48% reduction in time required to schedule workers
- 20% increase in resource utilization, meaning workers complete more jobs in the same timeframe
- 27% more jobs completed, with customers like Solace Pediatric Home Healthcare reducing patient no-shows by 84% in a single quarter
Use the Skedulo ROI Calculator to begin a scenario, then work through the assumptions with your operations and finance teams. A useful proposal makes the expected changes, costs and measures explicit enough to review after rollout.
Field operations research and product updates
- Research on frontline operations
- Customer stories and service examples
- Skedulo product updates
Communications are limited to relevant news and insights.
