ROI Calculator for Assessors
Assessment Firm Savings with TCT Portal
Y1
Y2+
Percentage Time Saved with TCT Portal:
45%
64%
Personnel Hours Saved with TCT Portal:
5181
7281
Personnel Cost Saved with TCT Portal:
$388,575
$546,075
Revenue That Could Be Realized With Saved Time:
$1,424,775
$2,002,275
Please use the values below as a starting point. The intent of the below grid is that you can enter in values that are reflective of your Firm reality, for EACH of your average engagements. Below the main grid, you can enter additional parameters for your Assessment Firm.
If yours is a large Firm, an alternative option would be to break your engagements into counts of small, medium and large engagements. Then, fill in the numbers for each scale of engagement your Firm performs, on average, each year - then you can use the collective results to calculate realistic savings for your Firm.
Assessor Task
# of People
# of Weeks
# of Hours/ Week/ Task
Today
TCT Portal Hours Year 1
TCT Portal Hours Year 2+
(Per Assessment)
Applicant Config & Maintenance
Configure collection instance and internal systems for unique Applicant
For each Applicant engagement, this is the time for setting up their instance where data will be collected. Often this is a configuration of a drop zone or a series of folders for them to store the requested evidence into that is publicly facing, but typically locked down to that particular Applicant for that particular year.
2
0
0
Client data collection instances are now configured easily in the TCT Portal, and no longer need to be manually configured by your staff, so this time is now saved.
Pulling evidence from collection instance to internal systems
This is the time spent migrating the evidence from each Applicant from the publicly facing systems to internal storage locations. Often, the evidence has been sent by the Applicant to the Assessor through other means as well, including text messages, emails, voicemails, and through meeting minutes.
8
0
0
Client data collection instances are now configured easily in the TCT Portal. There is no need to migrate information from there to be organized in your Assessment format, so this time is now saved.
Applicant Meetings
Prep for Applicant meetings
The Assessor team needs to get organized and prepared for Applicant meetings, which will typically happen once a week, and possibly more often as the compliance deadline looms. This process will involve active reviews of evidence and status from Applicants, their Consultants, and or their vendors. The Assessor team needs to understand what elements and items remain for the Applicant team that are open.
16
0.8
0.8
Since the information from your Client is now live within TCT Portal, you no longer need to spend hours before each meeting, attempting to figure out where everything stands. Going forward, you will be able to log into the TCT Portal minutes before Client meetings, looking at live status, so this time is now greatly diminished.
Meet with Applicant
During the recurring meetings, this is a session for determining status of items, answering questions during the session, advising and discussing any rejections that are coming back to the Applicants.
8
4
2
In the past, a substantial portion of the status calls with your Client would be spent attempting to figure out where things stand. Now that everything is live within TCT Portal, in Year 1 that time is greatly diminished. Once you get to Year 2 with your Client, and they are completely in lock step with your organization regarding the use and functionality of TCT Portal, you will experience additional time savings.
Internal Meetings
Prep for internal Assessment Firm status meetings
During this time, the Assessor is preparing for their internal meetings, often with their peers, and whoever they report to within the organization to be able to provide a status update on the progress of the engagement.
4
0.2
0.2
Since the information is now live within TCT Portal, you no longer need to spend hours before each meeting, attempting to figure out where everything stands. Going forward, you will be able to log into the TCT Portal minutes before internal meetings, looking at live status, so this time is now greatly diminished.
Internal Assessment Firm status meetings
This is the time spent in the actual meeting.
8
4
2
In the past, a substantial portion of the status calls internally would be spent attempting to figure out where things stand. Now that everything is live within TCT Portal, in Year 1 that time is greatly diminished. Once you get to Year 2, and the internal team is efficient regarding the use and functionality of TCT Portal, you will experience additional time savings.
Evidence Processing
Assessor review evidence
During this time, the Assessor will be reviewing various forms of evidence supplied against the target requirements. This could include policy reviews, screenshots, configuration files, meeting minutes, as well as interactive session results with the Applicant.
128
96
64
During Year 1 for each Client engagement, the evidence is now appropriately associated with the correct items (since the Client loaded the correct evidence to the appropriate items). It no longer matters that the Client named a file something like XJ3QZ8.PDF they loaded to an evidence drop zone so you're not wasting time reviewing the evidence simply to see what it is. Assessors can simply evaluate the evidence and get to processing items.
Once the Client gets to Year 2, their effectiveness at using the system has improved, and you have the added benefit of both the Client and the Assessor being able to refer back to the evidence which was supplied in the prior year. This will inherently improve the quality of the submissions from your Client and thus save additional time.
Once the Client gets to Year 2, their effectiveness at using the system has improved, and you have the added benefit of both the Client and the Assessor being able to refer back to the evidence which was supplied in the prior year. This will inherently improve the quality of the submissions from your Client and thus save additional time.
Reject evidence, including notifying Applicant via email, phone or meeting
For any items that require additional evidence, time is spent documenting the additional evidence needs, and notifying the appropriate Applicant team member that the item is coming back to them. These notifications could happen through email, phone, text, or in meetings.
32
16
16
With the use of the TCT Portal, your team is no longer replicating their decisions internal tracking systems (or spreadsheets) over into email notifications to the Client, the process is substantially streamlined.
Accept evidence, write report text and move to QA
Time is spent accepting evidence, writing the report text needed and notifying the QA department that these items are ready for final review.
32
16
8
Your team is now able to accept evidence, write their report text and move to QA all from within the TCT Portal. Since the Assessors have access to both the Client Explanations and Attachments (evidence) supplied from the same interface where the report text is being entered, the process is streamlined.
Once the Client engagement gets to Year 2, there is an additional benefit of being able to directly refer to the report text written for the prior year, further streamlining the time savings per engagement.
Once the Client engagement gets to Year 2, there is an additional benefit of being able to directly refer to the report text written for the prior year, further streamlining the time savings per engagement.
Update tracking sheet
As items are moving up the workflow, being processed, and either rejected or accepted toward QA, all of these activities involve making updates to the central manual tracking sheet as a second step.
16
0
0
Since the information for your engagement is now live within TCT Portal, you no longer need to spend hours updating status tracking mechanisms. Going forward, you will be able to log into the TCT Portal, take action and have that reflected in the live status, eliminating this waste of time.
Answer Applicant questions
On every engagement, there are a series of questions from the Applicant. The vast majority of these questions are either the same or primarily similar as questions the team has received previously. It is infrequent that an Applicant is asking a net new question of the team. This is the time spent answering the same questions across each engagement.
32
16
8
Since your team has the capability to enter in customized guidance regarding the nature of the evidence you are seeking, and your Clients have the capability to immediately reference that information, they will have immediate access as a reference point to the evidence required for this item.
The customized guidance to your Clients is available to be updated in TCT Portal, and those updates go live to your Clients. As a result, training your Clients to refer to the guidance you have provided means that every Client will immediately see the most up-to-date, latest guidance from your organization. TCT recommends that Assessors regularly update that guidance, as questions come in from their Clients.
Once your Clients get to Year 2 and beyond, they will also have the capability to refer back to the evidence which they provided on their prior year track. All of these factors mean that you will experience continuous improvement in the amount of time your team spends answering questions from your Clients.
The customized guidance to your Clients is available to be updated in TCT Portal, and those updates go live to your Clients. As a result, training your Clients to refer to the guidance you have provided means that every Client will immediately see the most up-to-date, latest guidance from your organization. TCT recommends that Assessors regularly update that guidance, as questions come in from their Clients.
Once your Clients get to Year 2 and beyond, they will also have the capability to refer back to the evidence which they provided on their prior year track. All of these factors mean that you will experience continuous improvement in the amount of time your team spends answering questions from your Clients.
Interviews & Onsite
Interview applicants
For each engagement, there are a series of interviews that need to be done with various members of the Applicant team, and this is the time spent performing those interviews.
16
12
8
Since pertinent evidence is readily accessible, as you are performing the interviews, Year 1 interviews with your Clients tend to take less time. Starting with Year 2 and beyond, the Assessors have access to both the supporting evidence, and the interview notes from the prior cycle, which allows for an additional efficiency gain.
Conduct onsite activities
On each engagement, there are a series of activities that need to be performed onsite, including physical security inspections, meetings with various members of the Applicant team for observations and executive meetings.
8
6
4
With all of the evidence for the engagement at the fingertips of the Assessors, they find themselves spending less time during their on-site activities. Once the Client gets to Year 2 and beyond, the Assessor will have various efficiency gains, they can incorporate into the process.
QA & Report Generation
QA activities reviewing Assessor inputs, evidence review
The QA team will spend time reviewing the final output from the Assessor team, and ensuring that the work performed and reporting content meet the requirements of the quality assurance department.
48
36
24
In the first year of QA review, the QA personnel will have all of the Client, explanations and attachments in the same location as the report text from the Assessor, and any additional commentary they may have provided when submitting up to QA. All of these being in the same location allows QA to execute with a higher level of efficiency, including the ability to workflow their items from within the TCT Portal.
Once the QA team gets to Year 2 and beyond, they have the added benefit of referring to the report text leverage from the prior year to sanity check the submissions they are receiving from the Assessors, which further accelerates the efficiency gains.
Once the QA team gets to Year 2 and beyond, they have the added benefit of referring to the report text leverage from the prior year to sanity check the submissions they are receiving from the Assessors, which further accelerates the efficiency gains.
Prepare/complete final Applicant reports
This is the time spent generating the final Applicant report itself.
16
0
0
Your team will no longer have to work off-line, generating reporting for your engagements. Since the report text is included in the TCT Portal, report generation is down to a single button click for generation of reporting, so this time is now saved.
QA of final Applicant reports
Final validation that the report content is ready for external distribution.
4
0.2
0.2
Provided the QA team is performing their report tax reviews from within the system, the only final QA needed on. The outbound reports is to confirm there was no systematic issue with the report generation, so this time is now saved.
Applicant Archiving
Archiving engagement upon completion
At the conclusion of each engagement, there are various archiving responsibilities to ensure that all elements of the engagement are preserved, and retained for a period of time.
2
0.1
0.1
Every time that a Client engagement concludes, they are used to be manual processes for archiving Clients engagements. Since the TCT Portal retains all of the information from the engagement, this wasted time is no longer needed. All your team needs to do is to mark that particular Client track as completed and TCT will retain the information for use in subsequent years.
Total Hours:
380
207.3
137.3
Assessment Firm Parameters
Average Hourly Personnel Cost:
Across the various personnel that are involved in your compliance engagement, estimate what their average hourly personnel cost would be. Keep in mind that an average annual salary individual will have just over 2000 working hours in a year, so a person that is $150,000 a year which translate to approximately $75 / hr. Take the average across all of your personnel, keeping in mind that the majority of the personnel involved will be higher, priced technical resources, with some being lower, priced non-technical resources.
$
Average Hourly Personnel Revenue:
Determine an approximate hourly revenue per person at the organization. In some cases, one can acquire the numbers by looking at total revenue, divided by the number of personnel involved, and the number of hours in a year. In other cases, depending on the business question, the business model is one where personnel are billed out at an hourly rate. A good rule of thumb is that most organizations will seek to monetize their personnel at a rate which is three times the hourly cost of that personnel.
$
Average # Engagements Annually:
This is the number of engagements your firm would typically perform each year. Depending on how you entered in the numbers into your various line items, if you enter those for a small to medium sized engagement, you may need to add a few extra engagements to make up for the handful of very large engagements that you do.