Chapter 4 · Put a number on it

Price the task.
Then test the value.

Freed hours only become a business case when something concrete changes. Start with the task, include the running cost, then name where the value lands.

Your recurring task

Use your fully loaded hourly cost if you know it.100% is an upper-bound scenario. Reduce it for review, exceptions, and work that stays manual.Include software, usage, maintenance, and ongoing human review.Choosing a category is a hypothesis. You still need evidence for the cost, revenue, or hire that changes.

Your case, on one card.

Name where the value lands before calling this a business case.

Current annual task cost · 52 weeks
€36,400
Estimated annual business value before running costs
Not established
Annual value after running costs
Year one, including the build
Simple payback

A quieter week can be worthwhile. It isn’t automatically a saving on the P&L.

Use the book’s benchmarks as a sense check.

Personal productivity: somewhere north of €10,000 a year. A team or department: roughly €50,000–€100,000. Organisation-wide cases need a different level of scrutiny.

These are sorting guides, not a reason to abandon a small first build that you can finish and learn from. For a revenue case, validate the incremental margin you actually capture; a wage-based time estimate is only a starting point.

Formula: people × hours per week × hourly cost × 52 × share removed. Annual net subtracts 12 months of running costs. Payback divides build cost by positive monthly net value.

Turn this into a case card → Apply for a diagnostic ↗
Gabor Szorad · Business Impact · The Waterline
Scenario estimates, not guaranteed savings. All amounts are in euros.