Many organizations have realized return on investment through the implementation of a unified content strategy. Return on investment (ROI) is the anticipated savings to be realized after subtracting the cost of implementing a unified content strategy. The savings are future savings and are used to determine whether implementing a unified content strategy is appropriate for your organization. ROI can and should be calculated on an ongoing basis after implementation to verify predictions and identify additional areas of improvement.
Using a fictitious company as an example, this chapter focuses on where organizations incur costs, how to identify and measure those costs, how to identify and measure savings, and how to identify and calculate return on investment of implementing a unified content strategy. Note that the example and the costs are for illustration purposes only; they may not be entirely representative of your situation. Also, the costs for tools and technology are average costs at the time of publication. For current costs refer to the accompanying website.
Implementing a new technology and set of processes such as a unified content strategy should be undertaken only if it supports your overall business goals and objectives. See Chapter 4, “Where does it really hurt?” for information about identifying your organizational goals and objectives. Unless you can clearly state how the unified content strategy will help your organization reduce time-to-market, reduce costs, increase productivity, or meet whatever specific goals you have defined, you cannot effectively justify it.
Rockhead Inc., a fictitious company, is a small, medical devices company. Multiple areas within the company (Regulatory Submissions, Marketing, Patient and Physician Support, and Labeling) are looking at using a unified content strategy to improve the way they produce, manage, and deliver content. An analysis of their goals includes:
Shorten time-to-market.
Like any medical devices company, getting a product approved by the regulatory bodies faster means greater market share. In addition, Rockhead is planning a new suite of products based on a currently popular product that will roll out over an 18-month period. The suite of products will have multiple potential configurations, but Rockhead won’t know until the last minute which configuration will get approved. Immediately upon approval, they have to be able to assemble the appropriate labeling, marketing, and patient and physician support information so they can start marketing and shipping.
Rockhead Inc. has two goals in this area:
Reduce the time to complete a submission by two months.
Be able to assemble all appropriate marketing, labeling, and patient and physician support information within one week after approval.
Reduce the cost of product content development.
The cost of developing content has been increasing significantly over the last few years. More product is being developed, which means more content must be created, but the cost of content development is increasing faster than product development and manufacturing development. Something needs to be done to reduce these costs. Rockhead’s goal in this area is to reduce the cost of product content development by at least 25%.
Improve the accuracy and quality of content.
Accurate content is critical to patient safety and product efficacy. Using current processes and technology, Rockhead has had difficulty ensuring that content is consistent and accurate everywhere it appears. In the past year, inconsistent information resulted in a successful lawsuit by a patient. This must be avoided at all cost. To achieve accuracy and quality of content, Rockhead must first bring its departments together. Rockhead’s departments are a classic example of The Content Silo Trap; each department works individually creating and re-creating content, and reviewers repetitively review the same content, yet they cannot verify that they have seen and verified all appropriate content.
Rockhead has two goals in this area:
Integrate the content development, maintenance, and delivery processes associated with marketing, patient and physician support information, and labeling.
Ensure content is consistent and accurate everywhere it appears.
Reduce manufacturing defects.
Rockhead manufacturers products that require adherence to close tolerances to ensure they function properly. In recent months, quality assurance (QA) has identified that settings are frequently out of specification. Product that does not pass QA cannot be shipped. Rockhead’s goal in this area is to reduce defects to less than .01%.
After you have identified the goals you need to ensure that they can be addressed by a unified content strategy. For example, using the goals Rockhead identified in the previous section, Rockhead qualifies their goals:
Reduce the time to complete a submission by two months.
A unified content strategy can reduce development and delivery time. Reusing content can reduce the development time by the percentage of reused content. If opportunistic reuse is employed, the percentage of reduction may be less than that of systematic reuse because opportunistic reuse requires more authoring time. Regulatory Submissions feels that at least 25% of the content can be reused across the various reports and among common product submissions. Content reuse can be one factor in assisting Regulatory Submissions in meeting its two-month goal, but it is not the only factor that influences the time to complete a submission. Regulatory Submissions needs to determine what other factors will help them to achieve this goal.
Be able to assemble all appropriate marketing, labeling, and patient and physician support information within one week after approval.
A unified content strategy can achieve this goal if content is created in reusable elements, the content is complete, and Rockhead pre-defines the elements that must be assembled to create the different configurations of content. Either the content management system can dynamically assemble the appropriate content, or the final documents can be manually assembled from available elements.
Reduce the cost of product content development by at least 25%.
Rockhead has identified that there is at least a 35% potential for reuse based on the common content and safety regulations among its products. Common content can be reused across the product suites. Common safety regulations (for example, warnings, cautions) can be reduced throughout the entire product line.
Integrate the content development, maintenance, and delivery processes associated with marketing, patient and physician support information, and labeling.
Although this goal depends on the potential for reuse with all the content created in the individual departments, collaboration among departments also plays a key role in achieving this goal. Collaboration among teams or departments is a key component of a unified content strategy. However, successful collaboration depends on the ability of people to work together. Bringing widespread collaboration into the organization is more complex than integrating new tools; collaboration involves people who may resist change. For more information on achieving this goal see Chapter 19, “Collaborative authoring: Breaking down the silos” and Chapter 21, “Managing change.” This goal can be achieved with a unified content strategy, but attention must be paid to the issues of change management to ensure its success.
Ensure content is consistent and accurate everywhere it appears.
The accuracy of the content depends on the quality of the reviews. The quality of the reviews depends on the qualifications of the reviewers. As part of the unified content strategy, Rockhead will have to ensure reviewers are qualified and that appropriate guidelines and safeguards are put in place to ensure accuracy. After content is reviewed and identified as accurate, a unified content strategy that uses a content management system can ensure that content reused in multiple places is consistent.
Reduce defects to less than .01%.
This is an important goal for Rockhead; however, it is not a goal that can be addressed by a unified content strategy. It must be addressed with another improvement initiative. This goal will not be used in the unified content strategy ROI.
After you have established your goals and identified that they can be addressed with a unified content strategy, you need to quantify them. Before you can quantify your goals you need to know what it costs you now—either in time or money—to perform the tasks that you believe will be improved by a unified content strategy. If you haven’t collected these types of metrics before, see the sidebar “Identifying metrics” for some suggestions. For example, using the goals Rockhead identified in the preceding section, Rockhead now quantifies their goals:
Reduce the time to complete a submission by two months.
Rockhead has identified that they potentially lose $250,000/day for every day their product is delayed getting to market. First, Rockhead needs to determine what impact the content reuse will have on the time required to create a submission. Rockhead knows that a submission takes three content creators seven years to complete. In a typical development project, which lasts a year or slightly more, the expected calculation would be to multiple the opportunity for reuse (25%) by the length of time it takes to complete the task. However, a lot more than content creation happens in those seven years, so the calculation is not that straightforward. Content creation is estimated at 20% of the whole process, therefore Rockhead uses 20% of 25%, or 5%. The submission process requires three people at an average salary of $75,000 (some are more than this, others less).
Table 3.1 illustrates the calculations.
Table 3.1. Calculating savings for submissions
|
Metrics |
Calculation |
Interim value |
Potential savings |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Development cost | |||
|
Average salary [1] ($75,000) |
$75,000.00 | ||
|
Number of months saved |
12×7×.05 |
4.2 months | |
|
Cost savings |
(75,000/12)×4.2×3 |
$78,750.00 |
$78,750.00 |
|
Lost Opportunity Cost | |||
|
Number of business days in a month (see calculation) |
21.5 | ||
|
Number of days (4.2 months) |
21.5×4.2 |
90.3 days | |
|
Opportunity cost per day ($250,000) |
90.3×$250,000 |
$22,575,000.00 |
$22,575,000.00 |
[1] Salary here is calculated as simple salary alone. However, some companies use salary plus benefits. [2] Standard figure for number of weeks in a month (52 weeks/12). [3] This example assumes that cost is calculated Monday to Friday (traditional business days). Use the full week if appropriate to your business. | |||
Be able to assemble all appropriate marketing, labeling, and patient and physician support information within one week after approval.
This goal is a little harder for Rockhead to quantify. They have never developed a product before where they did not know the final configuration. In this case they have to create a “guesstimate” for how much this will cost. They guesstimate that if they had the content already complete, then had to pull it together for the specific configuration using their current processes and tools, it would take six people six weeks. The current process requires that they find all the relevant content, copy and paste it into the appropriate documents, and have it reviewed and signed off. In a unified content strategy, they guesstimate that it will take one week. This figure is based on the assumption that content will be created in elements, information product models will be designed that define the elements of content based on configuration, and systematic reuse will be used to automatically “populate” the information products with the appropriate configuration elements. Review and sign-off still have to occur.
Table 3.2 illustrates the calculations.
Table 3.2. Calculating savings for rapidly configurable content
|
Metrics |
Calculation |
Interim value |
Potential savings |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Development cost | |||
|
Average salary ($75,000) |
$75,000.00 | ||
|
Average salary per week |
75,000/52 |
$1,442.31 | |
|
Number of weeks (5 weeks [4]) |
1442.31×5 |
$7,211.55 | |
|
Number of people (6 people) |
7,211.55×6 |
$43,269.30 |
$43,269.30 |
|
Lost Opportunity Cost | |||
|
Number of days (5 business days per week) |
5×5 |
25 | |
|
Opportunity cost per day ($250,000) |
25×$250,000 |
$6,250,000.00 |
$6,250,000.00 |
[4] Development using the current method is estimated to take 6 weeks; however, development is estimated to take 1 week with the new method, so the difference is 5 weeks. | |||
Reduce the cost of product content development by at least 25%.
Rockhead has identified that there are potential cost savings of 35% within a department. This is based on 35% commonality between products and standard safety regulations.
The following figures are used to calculate costs:
Total time to create content (1 year)
Subject matter expert time requirements (15%)
Reviewer time requirements (25%)
Translation into six languages
Table 3.3 illustrates the calculations.
Table 3.3. Calculating savings for product and safety content reuse
|
Metrics |
Calculation |
Interim value |
Potential savings |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Development cost [5] by department | |||
|
Marketing ($1,200,000) |
$1,200,000.00 | ||
|
Patient and Physician Support Information ($750,000) |
$750,000.00 | ||
|
Labeling ($350,000) |
$350,000.00 | ||
|
Total |
1,200,000 + 750,000 + 350,000 |
$2,300,000.00 | |
|
Subject Matter Experts |
2,300,000×.15 |
$345,000.00 | |
|
Reviewers |
2,300,000×.25 |
$575,000.00 | |
|
Translation ($1,900,000) |
$1,900,000.00 | ||
|
Total |
345,000 + 575,000 + 1,900,000 |
$2,820,000.00 | |
|
Total costs |
2,300,000 + 2,820,000 |
$5,120,000.00 | |
|
Potential savings |
$5,120,000×.35 |
$1,792,000.00 |
$1,792,000.00 |
[5] Cost of resources only, not production costs. | |||
Integrate the content development, maintenance, and delivery processes associated with Marketing, Patient and Physician support information, and Labeling.
The costs and savings associated with this goal are dependent on reuse. Rockhead estimates that if they integrate these departments, 30% of all the content they create can be reused across the information products that each department creates (for example, cross department). Rockhead assumes that they will undertake this process in addition to the cross-product reuse, so savings are calculated based on reduced content development costs.
Table 3.4 illustrates the calculations.
Ensure content is consistent and accurate everywhere it appears.
The cost of this goal can be calculated in two ways: first, based on the time it takes to ensure that content is accurate using the current processes and technology, and second, based on not paying out on a lawsuit.
Rockhead calculates the cost of ensuring content is consistent and accurate everywhere it appears, based on a recent activity in which they had to change the occurrence of one warning in their information set to accommodate new safety guidelines. Two people took one month to scrutinize every document, identify where the warning occurred, and change it. Although ensuring that content is consistent wherever it appears should be a continuous activity, Rockhead uses the cost of the specific incident, assuming that if this cost was doubled it would approximate the cost of doing this activity on an ongoing basis.
Table 3.5 illustrates the calculations.
In addition, the amount awarded in the lawsuit was $10,000,000, not including the cost of the lawyers or the cost to prepare the case. Therefore Rockhead could avoid a minimum cost of $10,000,000 in the future if they ensure content is always consistent and accurate.
Now you need to identify what the investment costs of implementing a unified content strategy will be. Investment costs are incurred in three areas:
Technology
Training and consulting
Lost productivity
Technology costs include the cost of hardware and software. Part IV, “Tools and technologies,” identifies four types of tools you may require: authoring, content management, workflow, and delivery.
Rockhead has decided to move to XML.
None of Rockhead’s current authoring tools are XML-compliant, so they have to buy new tools. The current authoring areas that will be adopting a unified content strategy are using different authoring tools.
Regulatory Submissions
Regulatory Submissions is currently using a traditional authoring tool. They have decided to use an XML editor for internal staff and an XML-aware editor for external contractors/consultants (see Chapter 15, “Authoring tools”).
Marketing
Marketing currently uses a traditional authoring tool, then moves the content into either a page layout program for layout and publication, or into an HTML tool. They do not want to move away from their traditional authoring tool, so they decide to purchase the same XML-aware tool as Regulatory Submissions.
Patient and physician information
The department creating patient and physician information is using a desktop publishing tool designed for technical documentation. Their current version is not XML-compliant, but the latest release is, so they decide to upgrade.
Labeling
Labeling is also using a traditional authoring tool. They decide to use the same XML-aware tool as the other departments.
The potential costs of these tools are shown in Table 3.6. Note that these costs are for the software only, not for training. Training costs are included in the following table.
Table 3.6. Calculating costs for authoring tools
|
Metrics |
Calculation |
Interim value |
Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Regulatory Submissions (10 internal people and 3 external contractors) |
$8,500.00 | ||
|
Marketing (16 people) |
16×$500/seat |
$8,000.00 | |
|
Patient and Physician Support (10 people) |
10×$200 [8]/seat |
$2,000.00 | |
|
Labeling (3 people) |
3×$500/seat |
$1,500.00 | |
|
Total |
8,500 + 8,000 + 2,000 + 1,500 |
$20,000.00 |
$20,000.00 |
[6] XML editor approximate cost. [7] XML-aware tool approximate cost. [8] Upgrade approximate cost. | |||
Rockhead does not have a content management system, but unlike authoring tools, all the groups will use the same content management system. Costs for a content management system are usually based on a combination of server costs plus seats. For the purposes of this calculation, we’ve used a round figure that includes both server and seats. Content management systems can typically range in cost from $100,000 to $250,000. Some large implementations may run into the millions. Rockhead is not a large company and their needs are relatively small (small number of users). Although they could use the lowest value for their estimate, we’ve estimated a conservative $200,000, which should also ensure that sufficient funds allocated.
Workflow is a component of all the systems Rockhead is looking at, so there is no additional cost here.
If you are purchasing a separate workflow tool, consider using an average cost of $250,000. Separate workflow tools tend to be enterprise tools and as such are usually as expensive as a content management system.
Some content management systems include delivery to multiple media; however, XML-based content management systems require an additional delivery tool. Rockhead needs to deliver content in PDF and HTML. They can estimate a cost of approximately $25,000 for a delivery tool capable of converting XML to these formats.
If you are considering a dynamic delivery tool with multi-channel delivery, consider using an average cost of $100,000.
No implementation should occur without adequate training for all staff. Training should always be part of your investment costs.
Your organization may be able to implement the unified content strategy on your own without help from consultants for information modeling, DTD development or modification, software installation and configuration, and change management. However, most organizations use some level of consulting either from the tools’ vendors or from other consultants in information design and management and change management. Costs for consulting can vary depending upon how much assistance you require. Rockhead has decided to optimize its investment in training and consulting by:
Taking all the available training (user, installation and configuration, modeling, and DTD).
Asking for consulting to facilitate the process of information analysis and modeling for one department’s set of content, creation of the first DTD, and complete installation and configuration.
Retaining the consultants for “as needed” assistance as they complete the project on their own.
In this way they have help as they get started, but then complete the process themselves. They feel this will optimize their funds and resources and help them develop internal knowledge and expertise of their own.
The approximate costs of the training and consulting are shown in Table 3.7.
Even if you use consultants to help you implement your unified content strategy, there will be periods of lost productivity with your staff. Apart from their regular duties, your staff need to assist in:
Analysis
Design
Modeling
Configuration
Testing
Product acceptance
Training
Change management
Rockhead has decided to allocate the following resources to the project:
1 full-time project manager for 6 months
2 people from Regulatory Submissions for 6 months at 35% time
2 people from Marketing for 6 months at 35% time
2 people from Patient and Physician Support for 6 months at 35% time
1 person from labeling for 3 months at 25% time
2 people from Information Technology for 6 months at 35% time
Using personnel in this manner will get them up and running in one area only; then they will implement in the remaining two areas over the next two months. After the first implementation, Rockhead will allocate the following resources:
1 full-time Project Manager for 2 months
1 person from Regulatory Submissions for 2 months at 50% time
1 person from Marketing for 2 months at 50% time
1 person from Patient and Physician Support for 6 months at 50% time
1 person from Labeling for 1 month at 50% time
2 people from Information Technology for 2 months full time
Rockhead can calculate these costs two ways. It can calculate the costs of the individual salaries for the specified duration; it can also look at what it will cost the company to use contractors to fill in the gaps left by these people.
Table 3.8 illustrates the salaried costs, and Table 3.9 illustrates the contractor costs. Your organization needs to determine which calculation makes the most sense. Some organizations just use the additional costs (for example, the contractor cost) because this is a new cost, whereas the salaries have to be paid regardless of what the staff work on.
Table 3.8. Calculating salaried costs
|
Metrics |
Calculation |
Interim value |
Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
|
First implementation | |||
|
Project Manager |
100,000.00/2 |
$50,000.00 | |
|
Regulator Submissions |
2×(75,000.00/2)×.35 |
$26,250.00 | |
|
Marketing |
2×(75,000.00/2)×.35 |
$26,250.00 | |
|
Patient and Physician Support |
2×(75,000.00/2)×.35 |
$26,250.00 | |
|
Labeling |
(75,000.00/4)×.25 |
$4687.50.00 | |
|
Information Technology |
2×(75,000.00/2)×.35 |
$26,250.00 | |
|
Total cost |
50,000.00 + (26,250.00×4) + 4687.50 |
$159,687.50 |
$159,687.50 |
|
Full implementation | |||
|
Project Manager |
(100,000.00/12)×2 |
$16,666.67 | |
|
Regulator Submissions |
(75,000.00/12×2)×.5 |
$6250.00 | |
|
Marketing |
(75,000.00/12×2)×.5 |
$6250.00 | |
|
Patient and Physician Information |
(75,000.00/12×2)×.5 |
$6250.00 | |
|
Labeling |
(75,000.00/12)×.5 |
$3125.00 | |
|
Information Technology |
2×(75,000.00/12×2) |
$25,000.00 | |
|
Total cost |
16,666.67 + (6,250.00×3) + 3,125 + 25,000.00 |
$63,541.67 |
$63,541.67 |
|
Project resource cost |
159,687.50 + 63,541.67 |
$223,229.17 |
$223,229.17 |
Rockhead assumes that one contractor is required in each of Regulatory Submission, Marketing, and Patient and Physician Support. The contractor in Patient and Physician Information is shared with Labeling. A contractor is required to assist in Information Technology, but no contractor is used to replace the Project Manager. The cost of a contractor is assumed to be $8,000 per month.
Now that you have calculated all the potential savings and costs, you can calculate your return on investment. Return on investment is calculated as savings minus costs. Table 3.10 illustrates the calculations for return on investment.
Table 3.10. Calculating return on investment
|
Metrics |
Potential development savings |
Opportunity cost/savings |
|---|---|---|
|
Benefits | ||
|
Reduce the time to complete a submission by 2 months |
$78,750.00 |
$22,575,000.00 |
|
Configure product documentation in one week |
$43,269.00 |
$6,250,000.00 |
|
Cross-product and safety content reuse |
$1,792,000.00 | |
|
Cross-department content reuse |
$998,400.00 | |
|
Content accuracy |
$25,000.00 |
$10,000,000.00 |
|
Sub-total Costs |
$2,937,419.00 |
$38,825,000.00 |
|
Authoring tools |
($20,000.00) |
($20,000.00) |
|
Content management system |
($200,000.00) |
($200,000.00) |
|
Workflow |
n/a |
n/a |
|
Delivery |
($25,000.00) |
($25,000.00) |
|
Training and consulting |
($235,000.00) |
($235,000.00) |
|
Lost productivity |
($223,229.17) |
($223,229.17) |
|
Contractor costs |
($256,000.00) |
($256,000.00) |
|
Sub-total |
($959,229.17) |
($959,229.17) |
|
Total savings |
$1,978,189.83 |
$37,865,770.83 |
The opportunity cost/savings holds the greatest potential if a unified content strategy is implemented. However, some organizations are reluctant to use just the opportunity cost to justify a new process and system implementation; they would rather use budget reductions or expenditure reductions. Rockhead Inc.’s development cost figures show a number of opportunities for reducing costs. Reusing content within one department alone would cover the costs of the unified content strategy. To increase the savings further, Rockhead could choose not to bring in contractors and just have existing staff fill in the gaps until the project is done, a common practice in many organizations. Alternately, fewer consultants could be used, but that might increase the lost productivity costs.
Frequently the costs of purchasing new tools are of great concern to an organization, but the “people costs” (for example, productivity, training, consulting) are higher. Care should be taken to look at all potential costs and savings to determine whether the savings outweigh the costs.
Some organizations may find the figures daunting even after identifying a positive return on investment. When that occurs it is important to look at the costs to determine whether they can be spread out over time or incurred in phases. Refer to Chapter 22, “Transition plan” for ideas on how to implement a unified content strategy in the most cost-effective way for your organization. It is also important to educate your organization on what things “really” cost so that the investment costs and opportunities can be put into perspective.
Return on investment (ROI) is the anticipated savings after subtracting the cost of implementing a unified content strategy. The savings are future savings and are used to determine whether implementing a unified content strategy is appropriate for your organization. ROI can and should be calculated on an ongoing basis after implementation to verify predictions and identify additional areas of improvement.
The implementation of a unified content strategy should be undertaken only if it supports your organization’s business goals and objectives. To determine whether it does, follow these steps:
Identify your organizational goals.
Qualify the goals to ensure that a unified content strategy can address them.
Quantify the goals to determine what these goals are worth to the organization (current costs and potential savings).
Calculate your cost of investment. Investment costs are incurred through the acquisition of new technology, addition of training and consulting, and lost productivity when staff are moved from their current tasks to the new project.
Calculate the return on investment by subtracting your anticipated investment costs from your potential savings.
Determine whether it is worthwhile for your organization to implement a unified content strategy.