As web teams having increasingly larger roles to play in the bottom line of institutions so goes our span of duties. Many times the duties of teams largely exceed the talent pool so as all good web employees we make due. I assert that we are our own worst enemy in this case.
We have to understand that we make it hard to invest in a culture where we are seen as a cost expenditure, not a revenue generator.
We make it hard to invest in a culture where we are seen as a cost expenditure, not a revenue generator. Tweet this
We are to blame, we do a bad job at making the case for how we contribute to the bottom line and the bottom line can simply be brand recognition, but true measurable metrics, namely enrollments or donations. There is a need to drive a direct correlation between “this developer position” and 15 more students.
We need to align these positions with the business goals of our organizations.
A perfect scenario would be we hire a developer for project A (enrollment widget) which will expedite the project by 6 month thereby allowing us to get project A to market faster and equaling and increase an students.
Here is a formula
So you might ask what do I plug in here.
First things, you are going to need to be resourceful, two you are going to need some help.
You more than likely don’t have this information so reach out and make friends with finance and enrollment folks. They live a breath this stuff and will more than likely be impressed you asked and willing to help. Depending on your organization there may be agreed upon numbers or formulas that they prefer to use for these types of calculations institution wide.
Assuming you were able to jump that hurdle lets look at some real numbers.
Now we are making our case, for every dollar invested for said new developer we are returning $7.57. Now note this is a one year investment, this may justify a contractor if you cant justify the year over year investment. But also note that if we factor in that we have the student for 4 years assuming we are able to retain them we just bumped the ROI considerably.
So go forth, do your research and make your pitch. Now you just have to deliver so you can get funds the next time you make the case.
