Notes from 50th International STC Conference
Dallas, Texas, May 18-21, 2003

Developing a Business Case for Single Sourcing and Content Management

Ann Rockley
The Rockley Group, Inc.

Ann Rockley, with The Rockley Group, Inc., is an expert consultant in electronic publishing currently specializing in single-sourcing.

Session Description: This demonstration provided a practical approach for developing a business case. It focuses on how to identify and measure costs and savings, and how to calculate return on investment.

• Identify your goals: common goals include faster time to market, reduced cost, and increased consistency and accuracy
• Success is in the analysis
   
• Analyze the content life cycle; how is content being developed, by how many people, by how many different departments? Is there a predefined process; is it consistent from department to department? Examine the content life cycle and identify issues associated with it.
• Four key areas in the content life cycle: creation, review, management, delivery
• Perform a content audit account for all information in the organization to determine how content is used, reused (including quantification of % of reuse), and delivered to its various audiences. You need to understand how information – as well as the processes to create it – can be unified, eliminating the "cut and paste" method many authors employ in their attempt to unify content.
• Qualify your goals: Ensure that the goals can be addressed by your strategy.
• Quantify your goals: You can't calculate ROI unless you can quantify your goals (what does it cost you now--time or money).
• Faster time to market: measured in opportunity cost, which = the amount of money lost if an opportunity is not achieved. It is usually calculated based on the potential amount of money lost for each day an opportunity is delayed. Be conservative in these estimates, because it is not "real money."
• Reduced costs: are reduced cost of translation, reduced amount of time it takes to create a document (time = money), reduced number of people (labor = money) to create an information product.
• Increasing consistency and accuracy: Results include decreased support calls, fewer unhappy customers, fewer legal suits (quantify what these are worth); legal suits are particularly important in the medical/pharmaceutical arena.
• Percentage of reuse: the most important number to calculate; usually must have a minimum of 25% to provide sufficient ROI to justify single-sourcing.
• Average salary cost = salary plus benefits plus overhead.
• Length of time: how long does it take to complete a project: author, editor, reviewer, other (measured in weeks)?
• Putting a dollar value to potential savings
   
• Opportunity cost = % of reuse x current timeframe to complete a project
• Translation = % of reuse x translation costs
• Percentage of reuse x length of time x salary for that time
• Reduction of support costs
• Cost of legal suits avoided
• Metrics: Many companies do not know what it costs to do something (e.g., create a manual). If you do not have existing metrics, you'll need to gather them or estimate.
• Why gather metrics?
   
• Not knowing your "real" costs can perpetuate ineffective processes and make it difficult to determine the effectiveness of change. Not gathering metrics makes it impossible to calculate an ROI.
• Gathering metrics results in identification of measurable activities, identification of best and worst practices, improved project costs, proof of effective processes, improved estimates for future projects, and improved performance.
• Baseline provides a point of departure for metrics. You must have a starting number, which represents where you are today (e.g., number of documents created), or which can be estimated based on a quick evaluation of task information (duration, cost, effort, quality, value delivered, customer satisfaction).
• To develop a baseline, identify your tasks, measure their duration, and calculate the cost.
• Gather ongoing metrics; current metrics to the baseline, determine if they have changed and by how much, identify any mitigating factors, and identify further adjustments to continue to improve your metrics.
• Investment cost to implement single-sourcing: authoring tools, content management systems, training, consulting, lost productivity
   
• Authoring tools (Epic, Framemaker, XML; Microsoft is coming out with one in the fall): structured authoring tools cost about $500-$700 a seat. Conversion of existing materials into an authoring tool usually doesn't work; 60% of the data needs to be re-engineered.
• Content management systems: low-cost, smaller implementations ($20-35K); mid-range ($200K); high-end ($1M+)
   
• Low-end: Author IT, Documentum (!), Oracle iFS, Progressive Information Technologies Vasont, Siberlogic
• Mid-range: Progressive Information Technologies Vasont, JDEdwards Enterprise Content Manager, Panagon FileNet, Xyenterprise Content
• High-end: Documentum, Panagon FileNet
• Training: authoring, CMS, workflow, modeling, DTD/XSL
• Consulting: analysis, modeling, DTD/XSL, CMS, workflow
• Lost productivity: people who participate in the analysis, design, testing, and implementation (typically, 3-5 people spend 60% of their time, often with a full-time project manager); contractors to "backfill"
• Typical savings (mid-range)
   
• If you translate content, you could recoup your costs in less than a year
• If you do not translate, organizations typically recoup costs in 18 months to 2 years
• Savings continue after costs are recouped and the opportunities for innovation increase
• Building the business case
   
• Identify your goals.
• Identify your issues and clearly identify what these issues are costing the company.
• State your vision.
• Show your ROI.
• Educate, present, share other ROI case studies.
• Be conservative in your claims, document well, dry run your presentation with a skeptical audience ("Black Hat") to ferret out and eliminate vulnerabilities in your business case.
• Typically, most organizations do NOT win their first effort to get budget for single-sourcing solutions. Realistically, 1-2 years is often what it takes to get the CMS ball rolling.
• In the mean time, go ahead and start restructuring your material getting ready for a future CMS; this will speed implementation time and reduce cost.
• Additional resources
   
• Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy, ISBN 0735713065 (New Riders Publishing)
• Free monthly newsletter at www.rockley.com