Total Return on Investment

The value equation typically used in deciding whether or not to make a purchase is the return on investment (ROI). Simply put, the ROI criteria says that if you're not going to realize economic gain from your purchase, then you're better off looking for something else to do with your money. We recognize, however, that there are a number of costs and benefits which sometimes don't make it into the ROI equation.

These costs and benefits are economic, and can be estimated -- but are frequently omitted from consideration:

  • Future cost of ownership and upkeep
  • Time, labor, and expertise required to properly operate a system
  • Anticipated frequency and duration of future downtime

The following costs and benefits are non-economic, but still important to consider when measuring total ROI:

  • Aesthetic value
  • Public image / brand image
  • Environmental impact

We know that our technologies aren't appropriate for every design problem. There are many cases where more traditional approaches provide the best total return. When evaluating potential solutions for our clients, we focus on the total return on investment, and only make a proposal when our solution is clearly superior.

In these cases, our design solutions tend to compare very favorably with competing, "traditional" solutions when measuring simple economic ROI. When considering all the costs and benefits in the total ROI, however, our clients find that there's really no comparison.