February 2022

The Total Economic Impact™ Of Unily

Cost Savings And Business Benefits Enabled By Unily

Unily Logo

A Forrester Total Economic Impact™ Study Commissioned By Unily, February 2022

Table Of Contents

Companies need a cohesive employee experience (EX) platform that delivers trusted and timely content, engages employees, and enhances the digital workplace. Legacy intranets’ outdated features and dispersed information can erode trust and fail to meet imperatives of today’s fast-moving business environment. Unily delivers a cohesive modern software-as-a-service (SaaS) EX platform with tools that increase productivity and collaboration, improve access for content creators, and enable adaptation to today’s fluid business requirements.

Legacy intranet platforms have not kept pace with evolving requirements for employees in the modern workplace and are among the least-liked employee productivity applications, with satisfaction levels that lag those of nearly all other workplace tools.1 New cloud-based SaaS EX platforms look to solve these challenges for organizations, offering tools and services to facilitate knowledge exchange for employees within the digital workplace as well as content creation and access.2

Unily is a modern cloud-based SaaS EX platform that acts as a centralized portal for employees to connect and collaborate. The platform enables internal communications, integrations with a variety of third-party tools, knowledge management, and greater collaboration across the enterprise. Employees can interact with one another via social features and see communications tailored to their interests to engage with a unified company culture.

Unily commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct a Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study and examine the potential return on investment (ROI) that enterprises may realize by deploying Unily.3 The purpose of this study is to provide readers with a framework to evaluate the potential financial impact of Unily on their organizations.

To better understand the benefits, costs, and risks associated with this investment, Forrester interviewed five decision-makers with experience using Unily. For the purposes of this study, Forrester aggregated the interviewees’ experiences and combined the results into a single composite organization.

Prior to using Unily, interviewees used either third-party solutions or custom intranet solutions that were built in-house (either on-premises or in the cloud). These legacy solutions presented several challenges. Often the intranet comprised multiple sites, leaving firms unable to effectively communicate with employees companywide. Antiquated systems were tough to navigate and had poor search capabilities. In addition, the legacy intranet required substantial effort to maintain. These limitations resulted in an unsatisfactory user experience and lack of employee trust in the intranet.

After the investment in Unily, interviewees had a consolidated and scalable solution that gave employees a unified intranet platform.

Consulting Team:
  • Rishabh Dua, Kathleen Byrne, Claudia Heaney

Key Findings

  • icon
    ROI
    385%
  • icon
    BENEFITS PV
    $9M
  • icon
    NPV
    $7.2M
  • icon
    PAYBACK
    <6 months

Key Findings

Quantified benefits. Risk-adjusted present value (PV) quantified benefits for the analysis conducted over three years include:

  • Improved efficiency for content production, which saved more than 300 hours.

    Prior to Unily, employees working on content production spent time researching, posting, and reviewing items across multiple intranet sites. The consolidation of intranet sites and upgrading of the UI required fewer content writers to research, post, and review content. The employees working on content production were more efficient and could reallocate their time saved to other tasks. Over three years, the new intranet saved $4.8 million (PV) due to efficiencies with content production.

  • Improved productivity for knowledge workers, which provided 50% efficiency gains.

    Prior to Unily, information was not current or easily accessible for knowledge workers. Improvements in search, navigation, and content accessibility with Unily increased productivity for desktop workers by reducing time spent searching for information and trying to connect with colleagues. Over three years, productivity gains for knowledge workers saved more than $2.6 million (PV).

  • Increased efficiency for the IT team members managing the intranet, which recouped more than $500,000 over three years.

    Members of IT teams previously spent hours maintaining numerous intranet sites across divisions and global offices. Following the consolidation of the intranet sites with Unily, and due to Unily’s technical support in maintaining the SaaS platform, fewer members of the IT team needed to maintain the intranet, enabling them to work on other projects such as development of new features.

  • New intranet portal development capabilities, which saved IT team members more than 400 hours.

    Building a new portal with legacy systems was time-consuming for web developers and designers on the IT team. Implementation of Unily decreased the time to build and deploy a new site. Over three years, more than $600,000 (PV) was saved.

  • Technology consolidation savings, which totaled more than $400,000.

    Prior to Unily, interviewees utilized multiple third-party solutions to manage enterprise needs for an intranet including services and tools for new portal development. With Unily’s set of connected tools, interviewees could sunset third-party applications, consolidate legacy sites, and quickly develop new sites. Interviewees reduced the amount of software and licenses to develop and maintain legacy intranet solutions following the implementation of Unily.

Qualitative benefits. Benefits that are not quantified for this study but provided business value include:

  • Improved employee engagement with company communications.

    Interviewees noted an increase in favorability through higher Net Promoter ScoreSM (NPS) ratings and engagement following the implementation of the new intranet.

  • Improved collaboration among employees.

    Interviewees noted improved collaboration across departments, teams, and geographic regions, resulting in more knowledge sharing across divisions.

  • Improved governance of the intranet.

    Interviewees noted that prior to Unily, there was a lack of ownership around the intranet due to multiple sites. After implementation of Unily, there was greater brand adherence, enhanced employee trust in the intranet’s content, and more centralized ownership of the intranet.

  • Improved employee-onboarding experiences.

    Interviewees noted improved onboarding experiences for employees with greater intranet usage rates.

Flexibility. Additional use cases and future business opportunities include:

  • Ideation via Unily, which enables product improvement.

    Interviewees were impressed with their ability as Unily customers to vote on new crowdsourced ideas that Unily reviewed and often incorporated into platform development.

  • Mobile app usage, which may increase engagement and organizational visibility of frontline workers.

    Organizations with frontline workers could benefit from access to the content, features, and tools via Unily’s mobile application.

Costs. Risk-adjusted PV costs include:

  • Subscription fees, which totaled more than $900,000 over three years.

    Interviewees incurred a yearly license fee based on the size and scope of the project.

  • Implementation and maintenance costs, which totaled more than $900,000.

    Interviewees reported that the implementation process required involvement of several internal employees across departments over six months. Maintenance of the intranet required a smaller core group.

The decision-maker interviews and financial analysis found that a composite organization experiences benefits of $9 million over three years versus costs of $1.9 million, adding up to a net present value (NPV) of $7.2 million and an ROI of 385%.

Benefits (Three-Year)

TEI Framework And Methodology

From the information provided in the interviews, Forrester constructed a Total Economic Impact™ framework for those organizations considering an investment in Unily.

The objective of the framework is to identify the cost, benefit, flexibility, and risk factors that affect the investment decision. Forrester took a multistep approach to evaluate the impact that Unily can have on an organization.

  • icon
    DUE DILIGENCE

    Interviewed Unily stakeholders and Forrester analyst to gather data relative to Unily.

  • icon
    DECISION-MAKER INTERVIEWS

    Interviewed five decision-makers at organizations using Unily to obtain data with respect to costs, benefits, and risks.

  • icon
    COMPOSITE ORGANIZATION

    Designed a composite organization based on characteristics of the interviewees’ organizations.

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    FINANCIAL MODEL FRAMEWORK

    Constructed a financial model representative of the interviews using the TEI methodology and risk-adjusted the financial model based on issues and concerns of the decision-makers.

  • icon
    CASE STUDY

    Employed four fundamental elements of TEI in modeling the investment impact: benefits, costs, flexibility, and risks. Given the increasing sophistication of ROI analyses related to IT investments, Forrester’s TEI methodology provides a complete picture of the total economic impact of purchase decisions. Please see Appendix A for additional information on the TEI methodology.

DISCLOSURES

Readers should be aware of the following:

This study is commissioned by Unily and delivered by Forrester Consulting. It is not meant to be used as a competitive analysis.

Forrester makes no assumptions as to the potential ROI that other organizations will receive. Forrester strongly advises that readers use their own estimates within the framework provided in the study to determine the appropriateness of an investment in Unily.

Unily reviewed and provided feedback to Forrester, but Forrester maintains editorial control over the study and its findings and does not accept changes to the study that contradict Forrester’s findings or obscure the meaning of the study.

Unily provided the customer names for the interviews but did not participate in the interviews.

NEXT SECTION: The Unily Customer Journey

Interviewed Decision-Makers

Interviewee Industry Region Revenue Users
Senior director, people experience team Healthcare North America $82.8 billion 170,000
Head of digital communications Staffing and employment services Europe $23 billion 26,000
Support and service delivery manager Energy North America $13.1 billion 22,000
Applications analyst Energy North America $13.1 billion 22,000
Corporate communications group manager Insurance UK $250 million 700

Key Challenges

Prior to Unily, interviewees’ intranet solutions were built in-house, either on-premises or in the cloud with multiple portals across offices and divisions.

The interviewees struggled with common challenges, including:

  • Inefficient companywide communication.

    Content contributors could not easily communicate news and updates companywide. Each department had its own intranet site. With information dispersed across systems, it was time-consuming for content contributors to post across sites and difficult for employees to stay up to date. Moreover, there were limited to no social tools for employees to connect with their colleagues across a globally distributed network of offices.

  • Antiquated and customized legacy intranet sites.

    Interviewees had multiple sites across the enterprise with highly customized sites for different entities. One interviewed organization had more than 100 different intranet sites. These sites were slow, hard to navigate, time-consuming to maintain, and rarely updated.

  • Inconsistency across sites.

    Because each entity within an organization often had its own intranet site, there was a lack of brand consistency. Site admins would create sites tailored to the office, department, or group.

“One of the biggest things that we tried to do [with our employees] is to bring all of them together into one place so they could see beyond their sphere of work and ... get them thinking about the bigger picture, to work together, to create solutions across businesses and brands and ultimately serve our customers better.”

Head of digital communications, staffing and employment services

Investment Objectives

The interviewees searched for a solution that could:

  • Consolidate information across sites.

    A main requirement for a new solution was the ability to create one platform for the intranet. The corporate communications group manager said: “There wasn’t a single source of information or a single source of truth. We needed a different solution to communicate across offices.”

  • Offer consistent visuals and a user-friendly interface.

    Interviewees noted the need for a user-friendly interface for all types of users, including business users and content creators. Moreover, because each individual site for a brand or department had its own visual style in the legacy solution, they needed a singular vision that threaded a connection between disparate sites. The senior director of a people experiences team for a healthcare organization said the intranet needed to be “visually pleasing, brand-adherent, configurable, and, specifically for [content creators], an intuitive publishing flow.”

  • Improve ownership and governance.

    Interviewees noted that with multiple sites and admins connected to those sites, it could be difficult to determine organizational structure. Thus, there was a need to bring ownership to the intranet system and create a simpler organizational structure. Additionally, they needed to create a simpler governance system with the intranet solution. The senior director of a people experiences team for a healthcare organization said, “There is a need from a governance, security, and permissioning perspective for the intranet solution.”

Composite Organization

Based on the interviews, Forrester constructed a TEI framework, a composite company, and an ROI analysis that illustrates the areas financially affected. The composite organization is representative of the five decision-makers that Forrester interviewed and is used to present the aggregate financial analysis in the next section. The composite organization has the following characteristics:

  • Description of composite.

    The composite organization is a $20-billion global enterprise that works across both B2B and B2C. The organization has 25,000 employees across offices worldwide. Eighty percent of those employees are knowledge workers. The organization’s focus is on consolidating its multiple intranet sites and creating a centralized place for employees to find and share information with an easy-to-use interface. The composite organization also wants to create more ownership and brand coherence within the intranet ecosystem.

  • Deployment characteristics.

    The composite organization invests in Unily to upgrade from legacy solutions and simplify the experience for content contributors and the IT team. The implementation period lasts six months, and the organization onboards 50% of users by Year 1, with 100% of users being onboarded to the new Unily intranet by Year 3.

Key assumptions
  • $20 billion in revenue
  • 25,000 Unily users
  • Global organization
NEXT SECTION: Analysis Of Benefits

Total Benefits

Ref. Benefit Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Total Present Value
Atr Increased efficiency for content production $1,927,120 $1,927,120 $1,927,120 $5,781,360 $4,792,462
Btr Increased productivity for knowledge workers $705,829 $1,129,327 $1,411,659 $3,246,815 $2,635,591
Ctr Increased efficiency for IT team $219,375 $219,375 $219,375 $658,125 $545,553
Dtr Time savings for new intranet portal development $249,231 $249,231 $249,231 $747,692 $619,800
Etr Cost savings from technology consolidation $180,000 $180,000 $180,000 $540,000 $447,633
Total benefits (risk-adjusted) $3,281,555 $3,705,053 $3,987,384 $10,973,992 $9,041,039
“The communications team is hugely satisfied with Unily and being able to publish news and having it read and delivered to the entire company.”

Support and service delivery manager, energy

Increased Efficiency For Content Production

  • Evidence and data.

    In the previous environment, content producers spent substantial time navigating different intranet sites to create content that was up to date and ensure the accuracy of new and existing content. Unily provided a consolidated platform and modern UI for posting and reviewing content. Following the consolidation of intranet portals, content contributors did not need to manually post the same news to various sites and posted to one place instead with Unily. Fewer people needed to research, post, and review content, and employees who previously worked on content production saved time and attended to other tasks. The senior director of a people experiences team for an interviewed healthcare organization said: “Obviously within a modern platform like Unily, you can just go into the system, make a change, quickly publish, and then it’s live on the site. There’s a lot of speed, a lot of time savings from a go-live.”

    • The senior director of a people experiences team for an interviewed healthcare organization also described the change in workflow: “Instead of having each person with their own perspective publishing it to 55 different sites and then our employees reading those articles, we now have one person publishing one accurate piece of information to one site for all the employees to read.”
    • A support and service delivery manager at an interviewed energy firm said there were 400 content contributors across the intranet and noted about Unily, “Another item that is helpful and led to more efficiency is we don’t necessarily have to post in multiple places now.”
    • The senior director of a people experiences team for an interviewed healthcare organization said, “We had 900 publishers spending 25% of the week publishing articles and gathering content, and now it’s down to nearly 700 [publishers].”
  • Modeling and assumptions.

    For the composite organization, Forrester assumes:

    • There are 200 content contributors.
    • After implementation of Unily, 10% of the content contributors are reassigned.
    • A content contributor’s annual fully loaded salary is $65,000.
    • The employees working on content production spend 15% of their time working on content-production-related tasks, ranging from editing to posting.
  • Risks.

    The magnitude of this benefit may vary based on the number of content contributors, which will differ based on the industry and size of an organization.

  • Results.

    To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 15%, yielding a three-year risk-adjusted total PV of $4.8 million.

chart

Increased Efficiency For Content Production

Ref. Metric Source Year 1 Year 2 Year 3
A1 Number of content contributors Interviews 200 200 200
A2 Percentage of content contributors reassigned Assumption 10% 10% 10%
A3 Fully loaded annual salary per content contributor TEI standard $65,000 $65,000 $65,000
A4 Reassigned content contributor headcount A1*A2*A3 $1,300,000 $1,300,000 $1,300,000
A5 Percentage of time saved on content production Interviews 15% 15% 15%
A6 Number of hours saved 2,080*A5 312 312 312
A7 Fully loaded hourly salary per content contributor TEI standard $31 $31 $31
A8 Productivity recapture rate Assumption 50% 50% 50%
A9 Increased productivity for content production A1*A6*A7*A8 $967,200 $967,200 $967,200
At Increased efficiency for content production A4+A9 $2,267,200 $2,267,200 $2,267,200
Risk adjustment ↓15%
Atr Increased efficiency for content production (risk-adjusted) $1,927,120 $1,927,120 $1,927,120
Three-year total: $5,781,360 Three-year present value: $4,792,462
“I don’t have to necessarily go to W to search for a document, then go to X to search for a chat, then go to Y to find the survey, and then to Z to find the video. I can go to the Unily platform and find it all in one place.”

Applications analyst, energy

Increased Productivity For Knowledge Workers

  • Evidence and data.

    Prior to Unily, information was dispersed across separate portals dedicated to each department. The information was not current or easily accessible for knowledge workers. With Unily, improvements in search, navigation, and content location enhanced EX and the accessibility of knowledge. Productivity of desktop workers increased due to reduction in time spent searching for information such as office policies and then following up with colleagues or the IT team to confirm data. The new intranet improved collaboration between colleagues across offices worldwide. The support and service delivery manager for an interviewed energy firm said: “Unily enabled people to be more self-sufficient ... They know they can go to the intranet, search for it, and likely find it, whereas before, they may have not even bothered searching any environment given the difficulty of finding information.”

    • The senior director of a people experiences team for an interviewed healthcare organization noted: “Unily is helping us do more work. For example, if it used to take 30 minutes searching for something, it now only takes 10 minutes, which means there are now 20 minutes that can be used to go back to work.”
    • A corporate communications group manager for an interviewed insurance firm said: “It could take 10 to 15 minutes to look for the information. And even then, you wouldn’t be sure it is the latest version, and you would have to confirm it with the owner.”
  • Modeling and assumptions.

    For the composite organization, Forrester assumes:

    • The total number of Unily users increases from 12,500 to 25,000 over three years.
    • 80% percent of users are knowledge workers, and 50% of those knowledge workers use the intranet on a regular basis.
    • A knowledge worker’s annual fully loaded salary is $75,000.
    • The productivity gain from Unily is 50%.
    • Users convert 50% of the time saved into productivity.
  • Risks.

    The magnitude of this benefit may vary based on:

    • The number of users onboarded into the system.
    • The percentage of Unily users who are knowledge workers.
    • Utilization of and productivity gained from the intranet, which can vary based on the size and makeup of an organization.
  • Results.

    To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year risk-adjusted total PV of $2.6 million.

figure

Increased Productivity For Knowledge Workers

Ref. Metric Source Year 1 Year 2 Year 3
B1 Total number of users onboarded Assumption 12,500 20,000 25,000
B2 Number of weekly active users B1*0.8*0.5 5,000 8,000 10,000
B3 Fully loaded hourly salary per knowledge worker TEI standard $36 $36 $36
B4 Time with legacy solution (minutes per week) Interviews 20 20 20
B5 Productivity gain for knowledge workers Interviews 50% 50% 50%
B6 Number of hours saved per user B5*B4/60*52 8.7 8.7 8.7
B7 Productivity recapture rate Assumption 50% 50% 50%
Bt Increased productivity for knowledge workers B2*B3*B6*B7 $784,255 $1,254,808 $1,568,510
Risk adjustment ↓10%
Btr Increased productivity for knowledge workers (risk-adjusted) $705,829 $1,129,327 $1,411,659
Three-year total: $3,246,815 Three-year present value: $2,635,591

Increased Efficiency For IT Team

  • Evidence and data.

    The previous intranet solution required multiple full-time employees (FTEs) from the IT team to maintain the numerous intranet sites across departments and global offices. The consolidation of the intranet with Unily required fewer members of the IT team to actively maintain the intranet (Unily provides full technical support to maintain the SaaS platform). These members of the IT team now work on other tasks and focus on resolving technical issues, making improvements where needed:

    • The head of digital communications at an interviewed staffing and employment services firm said the firm reorganized roles for three to five FTEs on its IT team.
    • A support and service delivery manager at an interviewed energy firm with hundreds of individual intranet sites said, “We had 20 people [on the IT team] working 100% of the time, and now for the intranet, it’s down to two [employees] working 35% to 50% of the time.”
  • Modeling and assumptions.

    For the composite organization, Forrester assumes:

    • Each IT team member supports approximately 200 Unily users, meaning the IT team totals 125 employees for an organization of this size.
    • Five percent of the total IT team maintains the intranet.
    • An IT team member’s annual fully loaded salary is $75,000.
  • Risks.

    The magnitude of this benefit may vary based on the total size of the IT team and number of team members working on the intranet, which will vary based on the size of the organization.

  • Results.

    To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year risk-adjusted total PV of $546,000.

figure

Increased Efficiency For IT Team

Ref. Metric Source Year 1 Year 2 Year 3
C1 Total IT team Assumption 125 125 125
C2 Percentage of IT team operations members on intranet team Assumption 5% 5% 5%
C3 IT operations team members on intranet team with legacy solution C1*C2 6 6 6
C4 IT operations team members on intranet team with Unily Interviews 3 3 3
C5 Fully loaded annual salary per IT operations team member TEI standard $75,000 $75,000 $75,000
Ct Increased efficiency for IT team (C3-C4)*C5 $243,750 $243,750 $243,750
Risk adjustment ↓10%
Ctr Increased efficiency for IT team (risk-adjusted) $219,375 $219,375 $219,375
Three-year total: $658,125 Three-year present value: $545,553

Time Savings For New Intranet Portal Development

  • Evidence and data.

    Development of new portals is important because it allows tailored, customized experiences for users in different departments. Creating a new portal could take IT team members months using the legacy system. With the implementation of Unily, web developers and designers observed that the time to build and deploy a new portal decreased from months to days. A manager at an interviewed energy company emphasized the importance of “the ability to have something that’s brand-compliant out of the box and our branding teams not losing their minds [with] all these one-off designers and divisions of the company trying to create sites that they think look good but are not on-brand.”

    • The senior director of a people experiences team for an interviewed healthcare organization noted: “We gained speed to implementation at every level. For each [new] site, [we were] typically looking at three to six months if we were to build. With Unily, we can build and spin something up in weeks.”
  • Modeling and assumptions.

    For the composite organization, Forrester assumes:

    • Eight new sites are created each year.
    • Three developers are needed to build and deploy each new site.
    • The annual fully loaded salary for a developer is $100,000.
    • Users convert 50% of the time saved into additional productivity.
  • Risks.

    The magnitude of this benefit may vary based on:

    • The number of new sites created yearly and the time to build and deploy, which will vary based on the size of the organization.
    • The number of developers, which will vary based on the availability, resources, and size of an IT team.
  • Results.

    To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year risk-adjusted PV of $620,000.

“Previously [we were] looking at a month to develop, and with the Unily platform you’re looking at a couple of days.”

Support and service delivery manager, energy

figure

Time Savings For New Intranet Portal Development

Ref. Metric Source Year 1 Year 2 Year 3
D1 Number of new intranet portals Interviews 8 8 8
D2 Number of developers Assumption 3 3 3
D3 Fully loaded hourly salary per developer TEI standard $48 $48 $48
D4 Time to develop new portal with legacy solution (hours) Interviews 520 520 520
D5 Time to develop a new site with Unily Interviews 40 40 40
D6 Time savings per portal (hours) D4-D5 480 480 480
D7 Productivity recapture rate Assumption 50% 50% 50%
Dt Time savings for new intranet portal development D1*D2*D3*D6*D7 $276,923 $276,923 $276,923
Risk adjustment ↓10%
Dtr Time savings for new intranet portal development (risk-adjusted) $249,231 $249,231 $249,231
Three-year total: $747,692 Three-year present value: $619,800
“Since we were able to use the broadcast functionality within the Unily platform, the business did not need an additional email analytics tool.”

Analytics analyst, energy

Cost Savings From Technology Consolidation

  • Evidence and data.

    Prior to implementing Unily, interviewees developed, hosted, and maintained sites using third-party options.They used a variety of tools and services for communication across the enterprise. After Unily, interviewees decreased the number of third-party solutions to support their intranet because they consolidated sites and developed new sites faster. Furthermore, interviewees sunsetted standalone tools that the Unily platform provided, such as email analytics. Unily’s EX platform gave interviewees a set of connected tools from integrations to targeted communications and email broadcasts. The corporate communications group manager for an insurance firm noted the resulting ability to consolidate tools: “[Unily] helped make the amount of tools we had visible, so we were able to consolidate and integrate into one solution.” The platform also allowed interviewees to create a new portal without requiring extensive and expensive customizations. Therefore, the amount of software and licenses to develop and maintain the legacy intranet decreased.

    • The senior director of a people experiences team for an interviewed healthcare organization said, “Across all platforms and licenses that we have sunsetted, we see anywhere from $5,000 to $55,000 in terms of ongoing savings every time we build a site.”
    • An interviewed insurance firm spent nearly $60,000 on customization of sites prior to implementing Unily.
    • The head of digital communications at an interviewed staffing and employment services firm noted that each portal took $20,000 to develop and deploy with a previous external vendor.
  • Modeling and assumptions.

    For the composite organization, Forrester assumes software and license fees total $200,000 per year under the legacy solution.

  • Risks.

    The magnitude of this benefit may vary based on:

    • The number of services and licenses, which will vary based on the size of an organization.
  • Results.

    To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year risk-adjusted total PV of $448,000.

figure

Cost Savings From Technology Consolidation

Ref. Metric Source Year 1 Year 2 Year 3
E1 Services and license fees with legacy solution Interviews $200,000 $200,000 $200,000
Et Cost savings from technology consolidation E1 $200,000 $200,000 $200,000
Risk adjustment ↓10%
Etr Cost savings from technology consolidation (risk-adjusted) $180,000 $180,000 $180,000
Three-year total: $540,000 Three-year present value: $447,633

Qualitative Benefits

Additional benefits that customers experienced but were not able to quantify include:

  • Improved Net Promoter ScoreSM (NPS) ratings and employee engagement with company communications.

    A senior director of a people experiences team for an interviewed healthcare organization spoke about the difference Unily made to his organization’s NPS: “[Prior to Unily, we had an] NPS of -45. Two months after that, the survey results showed that the NPS jumped to +15. Favorability went from 25% to 78%.” He added, “In 2019, we were at 29,000 monthly searches, and now [we’re] up to 68,000 monthly searches.” The head of digital communications at an interviewed staffing agency also noted a tenfold increase in intranet searches due to Unily, saying of the organization: “We went from 25,000 searches to 250,000 searches per month.”

  • Improved collaboration among employees across departments.

    Interviewees noted improved collaboration across departments and teams. A senior director of a people experiences team for an interviewed healthcare organization said, “A valuable improvement, as far as collaboration, is us as a company seeing the same message [across the board].”

    The head of digital communications at an interviewed staffing and employment services firm compared the before-and-after states of collaboration: “Communication was very local — it wasn’t very digital. Employees all used email. They would send an email to try and connect, and they would never know anyone beyond their location. But now, they can find people from other parts of the business and post questions to see if anyone had a similar experience, and you see them connect with one another and find answers from colleagues. That’s a huge change.”

  • Improved governance of the intranet.

    Interviewees noted how prior to Unily, the intranet was decentralized, and ownership was lacking. A senior director of a people experiences team at an interviewed healthcare organization said that with Unily: “Governance has to be another big one for us. [We’re a] large company [with a] lot of people touching the platform, a lot of people who want to build sites on the platform. I think we were able to find a sweet spot between giving you the ability to create what you feel is your own brand within the company but also staying within the confines of the global brand.” The interviewee explained that Unily’s templates in part achieved this: “We were able to roll out a series of templates and frameworks so we can keep the experience looking [and] feeling consistent for our employees.”

    He also described the connection between improved governance — producing consistent and trusted messaging — and employee collaboration, saying: “Instead of having 55 people with their own perspective publishing it to 55 portals and then our employees reading those articles, we now have one person publishing one accurate piece of information to one portal ... us as a company seeing the same message about something important is very valuable.”

    A support and service delivery manager at an interviewed energy firm said: “We never really had any sort of governance around site building and branding within our legacy environment. We have that now [with Unily].” The head of digital communications for a staffing and employment services firm noted: “The biggest benefit was [having] that single source of truth, that place where you could find all the information that you needed. Unily is the place to find the information.”

  • Improved EX with onboarding.

    Interviewees noted improved onboarding experiences. The head of digital communications at a staffing and employment services firm noted that at one of its European offices, onboarding times decreased by a couple of hours due to Unily. A corporate communications manager at an interviewed insurance firm spoke about the particular usefulness of a cohesive intranet to the organization’s newer employees: “The adoption rate of Unily started to increase quite rapidly. People really used it, they have a good orientation on the intranet, they inform themselves, and [they] are now used to the system. They are even more loyal to the intranet than our older employees who have been with the company for longer because they started with the intranet.”

Flexibility

The value of flexibility is unique to each customer. There are multiple scenarios in which a customer might implement Unily and later realize additional uses and business opportunities, including:

  • Ideation via Unily, which enables product improvement.

    Interviewees were impressed with the ability to vote on new ideas to incorporate into platform development. A support and service delivery manager at an interviewed energy firm said: “Unily has an ideation area where you can submit ideas and other clients can upvote those ideas, and they continuously look at those. If there’s an idea that’s hugely popular, Unily does work on integrating that into the product, which is nice. We’re pretty excited about a lot of the ongoing improvements and new features that Unily creates and releases.” A senior director of a people experiences team at an interviewed healthcare organization said the team provided suggestions to Unily, which it implemented as part of its roadmapping and eventually transformed into Unily’s search feature.

  • Mobile app usage, which can improve engagement of frontline workers.

    Interviewees described how frontline workers could benefit from access to the intranet via the mobile application. The corporate communications group manager at an interviewed insurance organization recently launched a mobile app with Unily and noted the particular usefulness of certain features for frontline workers: “The app made it a lot easier for workers to access information. When they are on the road, they need easy access to the directory. Through the intranet, they can phone and message [other employees] and group that information that they might want to share with their clients. It’s just more convenient through the intranet, and the likeliness of them doing it is a little higher. We also implemented a new feature for offline reading. Workers can set the app to offline reading, download certain items, and still have access to it. Moreover, [the sales team] came to [our communications team] and gave us insights on [our] roles to publish on the intranet to better inform the rest of the office.” A support and service delivery manager for an interviewed energy firm anticipated Unily’s potential for frontline-worker engagement at the organization: “We’re working on this mobile application that they could download on their personal devices with the hopes that they would use it to access company information or read news that we release. I think the Unily platform is going to enable us to be better at reaching them.”

Flexibility would also be quantified when evaluated as part of a specific project (described in more detail in Appendix A)

NEXT SECTION: Analysis Of Costs

Total Costs

Ref. Cost Initial Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Total Present Value
Ftr Subscription fees $0 $385,000 $385,000 $385,000 $1,155,000 $957,438
Gtr Implementation and maintenance costs $598,125 $123,750 $123,750 $123,750 $969,375 $905,873
Total costs (risk-adjusted) $598,125 $508,750 $508,750 $508,750 $2,124,375 $1,863,311

Subscription Fees

  • Evidence and data.

    Unily requires an annual subscription fee that includes professional services. Interviewees cited subscription fees ranging from $40,000 (small firm with hundreds of users) to $1.2 million (firm with more than 100,000 users). The annual fees, which can reach up to $2 million, are based on the size of the organization and platform features deployed. There are additional fees for add-ons and services such as the mobile application.

  • Modeling and assumptions.

    For the composite organization, Forrester assumes:

    • An annual subscription fee of $300,000.
    • An annual charge of $50,000 for add-on features.
  • Risks.

    These costs may vary based on:

    • The size of the organization.
    • Negotiated rates for subscription fees.
  • Results.

    To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this cost upward by 10%, yielding a three-year risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $957,000.

figure

Subscription Fees

Ref. Metric Source Initial Year 1 Year 2 Year 3
F1 Subscription fees Interviews $300,000 $300,000 $300,000
F2 Add-on features and services Interviews $50,000 $50,000 $50,000
Ft Subscription fees F1+F2 $0 $350,000 $350,000 $350,000
Risk adjustment ↑10%
Ftr Subscription fees (risk-adjusted) $0 $385,000 $385,000 $385,000
Three-year total: $1,155,000 Three-year present value: $957,438

Implementation And Maintenance Costs

  • Evidence and data.

    Interviewees described an initial implementation effort and then ongoing maintenance efforts for the intranet.

    • A senior director for the people experiences team at an interviewed healthcare organization said that outside of the core implementation team — which included six IT business managers, three developers, two testers, one scrum master, two business tech analysts, and one communications analyst — an additional 25 to 30 FTEs spent 30% of their time on implementation.
    • The head of digital communications at an interviewed staffing and employment services firm noted that there was a core team of five to six people responsible for overseeing implementation of Unily. That core team included the head of communications, an IT manager, a platforms manager, an HR team member, and an employee from the content management team. Outside of the core team for implementation, additional team members from different departments assisted in the process.
    • The support and service delivery manager for an interviewed energy firm noted the core team for implementation totaled 10 people and included four members from the IT department and four members from the communications team.
  • Modeling and assumptions.

    For the composite organization, Forrester assumes:

    • A core team of 10 employees spends six months on implementation at 100% capacity. Fifteen additional team members spend six months on implementation at 30% capacity.
    • The average fully loaded hourly salary is $36.
    • From Year 1 onward, five members of the core team spend 30% of their time on maintenance of the intranet.
  • Risks.

    These costs may vary based on:

    • The size of the core team and required number of additional team members, which may be based on the size of the organization.
    • The average salary of employees.
  • Results.

    To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this cost upward by 10%, yielding a three-year risk-adjusted total PV of $906,000.

figure

Implementation And Maintenance Costs

Ref. Metric Source Initial Year 1 Year 2 Year 3
G1 Core team members Assumption 10 5 5 5
G2 Implementation and maintenance time (hours) Interviews 1,040 2,080 2,080 2,080
G3 Percentage of time Interviews 100% 30% 30% 30%
G4 Fully loaded annual salary per core team member TEI standard $75,000
G5 Fully loaded hourly salary per core team member G4/2,080 $36 $36 $36 $36
G6 Core team cost G1*G2*G3*G5 $375,000 $112,500 $112,500 $112,500
G7 Additional team members Interviews 15
G8 Percentage of time Assumption 30%
G9 Additional team member cost G2*G5*G7*G8 $168,750
Gt Implementation and maintenance costs G6+G9 $543,750 $112,500 $112,500 $112,500
Risk adjustment ↑10%
Gtr Implementation and maintenance costs (risk-adjusted) $598,125 $123,750 $123,750 $123,750
Three-year total: $969,375 Three-year present value: $905,873
NEXT SECTION: Financial Summary

CONSOLIDATED THREE-YEAR RISK-ADJUSTED METRICS
  • icon

    These risk-adjusted ROI, NPV, and payback period values are determined by applying risk-adjustment factors to the unadjusted results in each Benefit and Cost section.

Cash Flow Chart (Risk-Adjusted)

Cash Flow Table (Risk-Adjusted Estimates)

Initial Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Total Present Value
Total costs ($598,125) ($508,750) ($508,750) ($508,750) ($2,124,375) ($1,863,311)
Total benefits $0 $3,281,555 $3,705,053 $3,987,384 $10,973,992 $9,041,039
Net benefits ($598,125) $2,772,805 $3,196,303 $3,478,634 $8,849,617 $7,177,728
ROI 385%
Payback <6 months

The financial results calculated in the Benefits and Costs sections can be used to determine the ROI, NPV, and payback period for the composite organization’s investment. Forrester assumes a yearly discount rate of 10% for this analysis.

NEXT SECTION: Appendix

Appendix A: Total Economic Impact

Total Economic Impact is a methodology developed by Forrester Research that enhances a company’s technology decision-making processes and assists vendors in communicating the value proposition of their products and services to clients. The TEI methodology helps companies demonstrate, justify, and realize the tangible value of IT initiatives to both senior management and other key business stakeholders.

Total Economic Impact Approach

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    Benefits represent the value delivered to the business by the product. The TEI methodology places equal weight on the measure of benefits and the measure of costs, allowing for a full examination of the effect of the technology on the entire organization.

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    Costs consider all expenses necessary to deliver the proposed value, or benefits, of the product. The cost category within TEI captures incremental costs over the existing environment for ongoing costs associated with the solution.

  • icon

    Flexibility represents the strategic value that can be obtained for some future additional investment building on top of the initial investment already made. Having the ability to capture that benefit has a PV that can be estimated.

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    Risks measure the uncertainty of benefit and cost estimates given: 1) the likelihood that estimates will meet original projections and 2) the likelihood that estimates will be tracked over time. TEI risk factors are based on “triangular distribution.”

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    PRESENT VALUE (PV)

    The present or current value of (discounted) cost and benefit estimates given at an interest rate (the discount rate). The PV of costs and benefits feed into the total NPV of cash flows.

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    NET PRESENT VALUE (NPV)

    The present or current value of (discounted) future net cash flows given an interest rate (the discount rate). A positive project NPV normally indicates that the investment should be made, unless other projects have higher NPVs.

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    RETURN ON INVESTMENT (ROI)

    A project’s expected return in percentage terms. ROI is calculated by dividing net benefits (benefits less costs) by costs.

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    DISCOUNT RATE

    The interest rate used in cash flow analysis to take into account the time value of money. Organizations typically use discount rates between 8% and 16%.

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    PAYBACK PERIOD

    The breakeven point for an investment. This is the point in time at which net benefits (benefits minus costs) equal initial investment or cost.

The initial investment column contains costs incurred at “time 0” or at the beginning of Year 1 that are not discounted. All other cash flows are discounted using the discount rate at the end of the year. PV calculations are calculated for each total cost and benefit estimate. NPV calculations in the summary tables are the sum of the initial investment and the discounted cash flows in each year. Sums and present value calculations of the Total Benefits, Total Costs, and Cash Flow tables may not exactly add up, as some rounding may occur.

Appendix B: Endnotes

1 Source: Forrester Analytics Business Technographics® Workforce Survey, August 2021.

2 Source: Forrester Now Tech: Intranet And Employee Communications Platforms, Q4 2021, Forrester Research, Inc., October 5, 2021.

3 Total Economic Impact is a methodology developed by Forrester Research that enhances a company’s technology decision-making processes and assists vendors in communicating the value proposition of their products and services to clients. The TEI methodology helps companies demonstrate, justify, and realize the tangible value of IT initiatives to both senior management and other key business stakeholders.

About Forrester Consulting

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