Possible Difficulties That Can Occur With ROI Tools
A ROI Tool, or Return on Investment Tool, is an analytical tool used to calculate what benefit can be expected on an investment, or expenditure. But it is not as simple as that however, and difficulties can be experienced not only in the design, but also when implementing it and putting it to work.
A ROI Tool is typically used by companies who provide high-cost products. It is a sales tool used to provide prospective clients with enough factual, mathematical and financial information in order for them to make an informed decision on whether to invest, or not.
Achieving Success
The success of a ROI Tool starts with the sales and marketing teams. It is vital that they commit right from the beginning to building, promoting and developing a ROI System. Another element to success is that once the ROI System has been implemented, it needs to be trained to others throughout the organization. So, right away, this shows that without the sales force as well as management ‘buy in’, or training, the ROI Tool will not be used to its optimum and may not benefit a company.
Possible Difficulties
There are a host of reasons why difficulties can and are experienced with ROI Tools. One reason is that a ROI Tool may not be treated as a product and therefore its benefits are underestimated, misunderstood, not used to its optimum, or simply ignored. Some companies spend time, money and effort in developing their ROI Tool, and then leave it at that stage.
They do not conduct any further investigation into what the sales force require of it, and this may result in there being no further modifications, testing or development to the ROI System which may, ultimately result in not being used to its optimum by the sales force. If this happens the ROI Tool may get a bad reputation, or worse it gets neglected, and withers away.
Another notable reason is that the ROI Tool is difficult to use, or explain, not only to partners of the company, but also to future sales prospects, or customers. Trying to justify economic concepts is difficult enough to begin with and a lot of ROI Tools are weighed down with unrelated entities, or bits needed to operate it, which only adds to the perception that it is complex and difficult to use or understand, and if not trained properly, is unfortunately the case.
Missing it with the Prospect
In some instances, salespeople are not trained properly on the ROI System and don’t know how to use it in a confident manner, showing the client believable data, and the client may then become suspicious of it. Confidence must come from the sales team who should have a very clear understanding of the tool themselves in order to relay this to the client.
To answer the potential clients question of “what return will I get from my investment”, will rely on whether or not the data is believable to the client, and just buy implementing the tool at the beginning of a products lifecycle, could make it easier to answer their question.
