Automation sounds good, but as the manager of an SME the question that really matters to you is a different one: is this going to pay off? The good news is that the return of an automation can be estimated with four pieces of data you already have in your head. You do not need to be a finance expert or build an endless spreadsheet.
What ROI is, in plain terms
ROI stands for “return on investment”. Put simply, it is how much you earn or save compared to what you have invested. If you spend 2,000 euros on a solution and after a year you have saved 6,000, your return is clearly positive.
The basic formula is this:
ROI = (savings or revenue generated − cost of the solution) ÷ cost of the solution
What is interesting is not the percentage itself, but the time it takes you to recover what you invested. In well-planned automation we usually talk about weeks, not years.
The four pieces of data you need
To make a realistic calculation you only have to gather:
- Time spent on the task: how many hours a week or a month the process you want to automate consumes.
- Cost of that hour: the hourly wage of whoever does it, including social security contributions and the rest (what that person really costs you).
- Errors and rework: how much it costs you to correct mistakes, returns or complaints that the manual process causes.
- Cost of the solution: the initial implementation plus the maintenance, if there is any.
With those numbers you can already make a fairly reliable first estimate.
A realistic example
Imagine an SME where one person spends six hours a week entering order data from email into the management software. If that hour costs the company 20 euros, we are talking about 120 euros a week, around 480 a month. In a year, close to 5,700 euros in time alone, not counting the typing errors that then have to be corrected.
If automating that transfer costs, say, 1,500 euros, the investment is recovered in a little over three months. From then on, everything that follows is net savings, year after year. And that person goes on to spend those six hours on tasks that do add value.
These figures are indicative and serve only as an example: your real case may be better or worse depending on the process.
What the formula leaves out
The calculation above is the part that is easy to measure, but there are benefits that also count even if it is hard to put a number on them:
- Fewer errors means more satisfied customers and fewer complaints.
- Less dependence on a single person: if someone goes on holiday or takes sick leave, the process does not stop.
- The ability to grow without having to hire more people for repetitive tasks.
- More reliable data for decision-making, because it stops being copied by hand.
These factors do not always make it into the calculation, but they are often the ones that weigh most in the medium term.
How to decide without getting it wrong
Our recommendation is always the same: start with the process that steals the most time and whose rules are clear. Calculate the return for that one only, implement it in the simplest way possible and measure the real result over a couple of months. With that first measured win, you decide the next step with data in hand, not with hunches.
It is wise to be wary of any solution that promises a spectacular return without first asking about your numbers. A good ROI calculation starts from your reality, not from generic promises.
If you want us to put concrete figures on your case, that is exactly what we do in Bravo IA’s free audit: we identify the process with the best return and hand you clear numbers so you decide for yourself, with no commitment and no strings attached.