Forum Discussion
Tangible arguments of the added value of a Microsoft Champions community
Hi all,
For one of my customers I am helping to prepare the rollout of Microsoft 365, I'm looking for data that could fill a kind of business case about the usefulness of Microsoft Champions.
I am personally convinced of the added value of a community of Microsoft Champions. And can use as an argument what I experienced so far helping other customers.
Nevertheless, engaged customer would appreciate some more 'evidence based' arguments, to be able to answer the following questions of internal decision makers:
- What is my ROI if I 'pull' employees away from their core business role, to let them perform Champions tasks?
- What will be my cost if I go for an M365 rollout without building a community of Champions?
Anyone aware of any 'tangible' data that I could use to help answering those questions?
Thanks in advance for all reactions 
Cc: Meustine
Renaud_Xylos It all can be done in a spreadsheet! If you consider the cost of staff for example vs the cost of bringing in a professional provider to conduct training you can get the difference in costs. Now all these costs are based on 2019 data when I did it up ***(I make no promises that all the workings/calculations/formulas are correct!). If you don't have Champions or external training providers, the cost can be: no adoption of tech therefore no ROI so calculate licenses' sitting dormant; calculate the cost that will hit the Help Desk to man phones answering questions etc, replacement of tech where it's usually not the issue, the cost of shadow IT as they think the solution is broken rather than being trained on what they have; loss of productivity as they hit the longer learning curve, how many hours lost etc. It's expensive! That can be quantified if you've had a program go wrong but it's usually an afterthought therefore can be harder to track re $$. Come at it from a positive perspective re trainer vs champs. I say do a bit of both! Professionals will need to get the Champs up to speed and even 5mins a day for staff can have a massive impact. Here is my example excel spreadsheet that may help the community: https://onpointsolutions.sharepoint.com/:x:/s/Adoption/EcLyXNCL-HNDrUMuX78YV4ABV-G4l5ItR3oV4lwW_ADjiQ?e=NwbHGq
6 Replies
- Karuana_Gatimu_MSFT
Community Manager
I love Kirsty_McGrath_MVP response and there's another component though harder to quantify and it is employee engagement and morale. I've been involved in larger companies that will measure this on a quarterly basis. Questions like, "I feel like my organization invests in my skills." and using a "Strongly disagree" to "Strongly Agree" or 5 star scale will get a baseline for how people feel about the organization actually creating space for learning and prioritizing investment in talent. Measuring talent investment is a part of the People First Strategy motion that Microsoft is deeply invested in. Our other research shows that organizations drive cost efficiencies by investeing in existing talent rather than facing employee turnover due to poor engagement.
I encourage everyone doing this work to include employee engagement, talent retention, employee satisfaction measures in their ROI calculations. Lastly, creating opportunities for people to extend their careers as subject matter experts in a particular technology is also desirable. Putting that together with help desk ticket deflection and license usage makes for a broader picture of the RoI IMHO 🙂Absolutely Karuana_Gatimu_MSFT! love your suggestions. I regularly talk with HR and put this into our surveys. Some is quantifiable some qualitative. I always tell my Champs to make sure they put being a Tech leader/evangelist/driver whatever they feel represents what they did etc on their resume as well. Plus getting HR to align some KPI’s as well to their digital strategy/skills etc so it’s measurable. Helping managers drive forward productivity/digital skills as part of performance reviews. So many great ways to measure worth!
Renaud_Xylos It all can be done in a spreadsheet! If you consider the cost of staff for example vs the cost of bringing in a professional provider to conduct training you can get the difference in costs. Now all these costs are based on 2019 data when I did it up ***(I make no promises that all the workings/calculations/formulas are correct!). If you don't have Champions or external training providers, the cost can be: no adoption of tech therefore no ROI so calculate licenses' sitting dormant; calculate the cost that will hit the Help Desk to man phones answering questions etc, replacement of tech where it's usually not the issue, the cost of shadow IT as they think the solution is broken rather than being trained on what they have; loss of productivity as they hit the longer learning curve, how many hours lost etc. It's expensive! That can be quantified if you've had a program go wrong but it's usually an afterthought therefore can be harder to track re $$. Come at it from a positive perspective re trainer vs champs. I say do a bit of both! Professionals will need to get the Champs up to speed and even 5mins a day for staff can have a massive impact. Here is my example excel spreadsheet that may help the community: https://onpointsolutions.sharepoint.com/:x:/s/Adoption/EcLyXNCL-HNDrUMuX78YV4ABV-G4l5ItR3oV4lwW_ADjiQ?e=NwbHGq
Thank you so much, Kirsty_McGrath_MVP!
Thank you Kirsty_McGrath_MVP ! Definitely an interesting exercise you have performed there!!! Thank you for sharing 🙂
- You're welcome, happy to help.
