Cost analysis of the current way of working
Indicate where time is lost in your organisation. The calculator attaches an annual amount to it and splits that honestly: the share a SharePoint intranet recovers, and the share that only disappears with automation. Every assumption is shown on screen, with the source.
The calculator is loading. If JavaScript does not work, read on at the bottom of this page: the ten processes, the method and the sources are set out there in full.
About this calculator
This calculator estimates what lost time costs your organisation per year. The approach is deliberately cautious: the default values sit below what the research indicates, every attribution carries a range, and where an intranet solves nothing the result is zero. Everything the calculator uses is set out below, so you can check it without going through the tool.
You indicate yourself which of these processes apply to you. Each process is delimited so that nothing is counted twice.
Time spent searching, asking again and getting information across.
Files scattered across mailboxes, file shares and folders, with no certainty about which version is the valid one.
Research. McKinsey Global Institute (2012): knowledge workers spend about 19 per cent of their working week searching for and gathering information. Older American research, still the most quoted benchmark. More recent: APQC (2021, 982 knowledge workers) reports an average of 2.8 hours of searching per week. Our default values sit deliberately well below that.
A client calls and the history is spread across systems, mailboxes and external partners. Nobody can pull up the complete file in one go.
Research. Gartner (published May 2023, fieldwork September to November 2022, 4,861 employees at organisations of 100 or more staff in the US, the UK, India and China): 47 per cent of digital workers struggle to find the information or data they need to do their job well.
Agreements, procedures and responsibilities that have to be asked about and explained over and over.
Research. Panopto with YouGov (2018, 1,001 American employees at organisations of 200 or more staff): six in ten employees find it hard to get the information they need, and on average 5.3 hours a week are lost waiting for information or redoing work that already exists. American research. Our default values sit deliberately well below that.
Messages posted across several channels that still do not reach everyone, with the consequences that follow.
Research. Grammarly and The Harris Poll (published 2023, fieldwork October 2022, 1,001 knowledge workers and 251 business leaders in the US): leaders estimate that they themselves lose about 7.5 hours a week to poor communication. Research commissioned by Grammarly and carried out by The Harris Poll. Our default values are only a fraction of that.
Site, production, care or on the road: information gets through via printouts, phone calls and loose group chats, or does not get through at all.
Research. Microsoft Work Trend Index, special report on frontline workers (published January 2022, fieldwork late 2021, carried out by Edelman Data x Intelligence among 9,600 frontline workers in eight sectors): 63 per cent of frontline workers say that messages from management do not reach them.
Time spent submitting, coordinating and waiting for others.
Emails and messages to find out where something stands, who is picking it up and whether it has gone out.
Research. Asana, Anatomy of Work (2021, carried out by Sapio Research among 13,123 knowledge workers in seven countries): about 60 per cent of working time goes to work about work, such as searching for information, chasing status updates and switching between apps. Our default values sit deliberately well below that.
Intakes, work orders, purchase orders and requests that come in on paper, in stray Excel files or by email, and are processed by hand.
Research. Asana, Anatomy of Work (2021, Sapio Research, 13,123 knowledge workers): employees spend an average of 236 hours a year on duplicated work or work that turns out to be unnecessary. Our default values sit deliberately well below that.
Quotes, purchases, leave requests and invoices that sit waiting until someone chases them.
Research. Asana, Anatomy of Work (2021) counts chasing approvals as work about work, which absorbs about 60 per cent of working time. No separate published time figure exists for approvals. Our default values are therefore our own, low estimate.
During an audit, certification or client inspection: is this the approved version, and does everyone actually work with it.
Research. Gartner (published May 2023, fieldwork late 2022, 4,861 employees): 47 per cent of digital workers struggle to find the information they need. For audit preparation itself there is no reliable external benchmark, so this card only counts the search for the right version.
Time spent around employees joining and leaving.
Getting new employees up to speed on their own, and on departure closing accounts, access rights and equipment properly.
Research. Panopto with YouGov (2018, 1,001 American employees): new employees work about 28 hours a month inefficiently during their first months, mainly through searching for information and reinventing work that already exists. American research. Our default values sit well below that.
What your current way of working costs your organisation per year in lost time, expressed in euros. You indicate yourself which processes apply to you and roughly how much time they take. The calculator converts that using the number of employees, 46 working weeks per year and the gross hourly cost to the employer.
Per process: number of employees times the minutes per week divided by 60, times 46 working weeks, times the gross hourly cost. Holidays and public holidays are not in that number of weeks. Every attribution carries a realisation factor of 50 per cent, because recovered time comes back in scattered minutes that rarely add up to measurable output. The first year also applies an adoption curve of 50 per cent in year 1, 85 per cent in year 2 and 100 per cent from year 3.
Because it is an estimate, not a measurement. Every process gets a lower and an upper bound for the share an intranet recovers. The lower bound comes first, because that is the figure you can build a decision on. No accumulated three year total is shown, deliberately, because it would look larger than it is.
An intranet makes information findable and shareable: documents, procedures, news and who does what. It does not speed up approvals waiting on someone else, does not make requests flow automatically into the right system, and does not switch accounts on or off for a new employee. For those processes the calculator deliberately shows zero per cent for the intranet, with the explanation. That requires automation, a separate track with its own scope and price.
On eight public studies, including McKinsey Global Institute, Gartner, Panopto with YouGov, Asana and the Microsoft Work Trend Index, plus the Belgian labour cost statistics from Eurostat. They are set out in full on this page and in the report, with year, sample size and commissioning party. Where a figure does not exist, that is stated too: no separate time figure has been published for following up approvals.
By default 45 euros gross hourly cost to the employer, which you can adjust. Eurostat estimates the Belgian labour cost at 48.20 euros per hour worked in 2024. The default sits deliberately below that, so the result errs on the low side.
A PDF report in your mailbox with the full scenario, the amount per process, the split between intranet and automation, the assumptions, what the calculation does not do, and the sources. Meant to be forwarded internally.
No. It is an estimate based on your own input, not a quotation and not a guarantee. Time saved only becomes money once that time is actually spent on other work.
The intranet is step 1: a fixed price of 12,500 euros and a four week lead time. Automation is step 2, with its own scope and price.
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