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The Death of Long Term ROI Studies and I’ve started so I’ll finish
Published 09:32, 07 January 09
The Ghost of Christmas Present The “Ghost of Christmas Present”, a great genial man in a green coat lined with fur, takes scrooge through the bustling streets of London on the current Christmas morning, sprinkling the essence of Christmas onto the happy populace. They observe the meager but happy Christmas celebrations of the Cratchit family and the sweet nature of their "forgotten" son Tiny Tim, and when the Spirit foretells an early death for the child if things remain unchanged.
2. The Death of Long Term ROI Studies and I’ve started so I’ll finish
The traditional way to sell enterprise software was to find a “killer application” and do “Value-Based Selling”. The number of times I have heard phrases such as, “Our software will reduce costs in your supply chain by 1% over 5 years therefore it is perfectly reasonable to pay a mere $1m for the software”. Long-term ROI is dead. Customers care about the cost now and the benefit over the next quarter.
As in “A Christmas Carol”, the “Ghost of Christmas Present” reflects what I have heard more and more recently, about enterprise content management projects that are very late, and more importantly in the current economic climate, very over-budget – if things remain unchanged the projects will have an early death or be replaced by a lower cost alternative that is simple to use and easy to rollout.
Prediction for 2009: Long-term ROI studies are dead. Customers care about the cost now and the benefit over the next quarter. Companies will review current “in-flight” projects and realize it is cheaper to scrap them and move to a more cost effective alternative than to blindly carry on.
Follow me on Twitter @drianhowells
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