The Ipsos Reid BlackBerry ROI Study, 2004 found the following results in the U.S. (not confined to government users): The typical (median) end user converts 47 minutes of downtime into productive time per day. This equates to 196 hours per user per year in recovered downtime.
Workflow: In addition to their own personal productivity, BlackBerry also allows mobile staff to keep work moving for others while they are out of the office. The average BlackBerry user reports that BlackBerry increases the efficiency of the teams they work with by 29 per cent. This equates to more than US$21,000 per BlackBerry user per year.
Immediacy: The average BlackBerry user processes 2,750 time sensitive e-mails a year while mobile and more than 1,444 phone calls. The value of this immediacy is difficult to quantify but can be reasonably estimated at over US$5,000 per user per year.
Cost savings attributable to BlackBerry primarily result from RAS savings and equate to over US$275 per user per year.
BlackBerry users with voice service activated on their BlackBerry handhelds maintain the same volume of voice minutes as before becoming BlackBerry users. BlackBerry users without voice services experienced a decline of 12 per cent in voice minutes on average.
BlackBerry Net TCO per user totals US$1,228 and includes US$26 per user for pilot costs and US$229 per user for internal BlackBerry support costs including training, help desk, BlackBerry Enterprise Server™ and BlackBerry handheld support costs.
BlackBerry ROI varies by individual and is conservatively calculated at a minimum of 162 per cent. This equates to a payback period of 224 days, or just over 7 months.
In Canada, assessments of cost savings and return on investment by public sector organizations using mobility applications still tend to be anecdotal. For example, Bridgepoint’s Steve Banyai says the first half of their project came in “on budget, the development and implementation taking only eight months.” And people say they are more productive, says Durham’s Ron Blakey, though the Region has no means yet of measuring this.
David Ljunggren, in his January column, quotes then-Industry Minister David Emerson praising BlackBerry productivity: “It allows multi-tasking in an incredible way” says Emerson. But Ljunggren goes on to report Emerson’s description of how, in federal Cabinet meetings, as Ministers “drone on and on,” other Ministers are absorbed in their BlackBerries. “If everyone is so busy clicking away on their keyboards,” Ljunggren asks, “who’s actually thinking about where we are heading as a country?”
– Morrison
