Guide 03 · Step 2 of 5

Measure what it costs today

You cannot claim a saving you never measured. This step is boring and it is the one that makes the business case real.

Independent guidance from Synergy. ISO/IEC 27001 and ISO 22301 are published by ISO/IEC, which has no affiliation with Synergy and has not reviewed this material. Always work from the published text of the standard.

Most automation projects are sold on a feeling — "this takes forever" — and then measured on a different feeling. The result is a project nobody can defend a year later, because there is no baseline to compare against.

Establish the number before you change anything.

Time is the unit, and hours are the currency

Measure, or ask and then sanity-check: how long does one instance of this task take, and how many instances occur per month? Multiply. That is your monthly cost in hours, and multiplying by a loaded hourly rate gives the number the managing director will recognise.

• Handle time — minutes per instance, start to finish, including the interruptions.
• Volume — instances per month. Check this against a system, not a memory: the invoicing tool knows how many invoices there were.
• Rework — the share that comes back wrong and is done again. This is usually the surprise, and it is frequently 10–20% of the total.
• Waiting — the queue time before someone picks it up. Automation usually wins here first, and it is invisible in a timesheet.