Authors: Georgia Wilson & Liam Brennan

Many mobility teams come to us trapped in a frustrating cycle. They are expected to
optimise the GM programme by addressing persistent challenges like excessive costs,
compliance risks, inefficient processes, poor employee experiences and a lack of
strategic data insights. They know that software is the solution, but securing the budget
to invest in technology remains a major hurdle, even though it ultimately delivers
multiple times its value in savings and impact. With procurement scrutiny at an all-time
high, GM teams need a watertight business case that clearly and compellingly
demonstrates the return on investment (ROI).

At ECA, we’ve helped many clients build exactly that. Through these partnerships, we’ve
developed a proven strategy for making a winning case for investment in mobility tech:

Build the right stakeholder team - and use discovery to unlock value
A strong business case goes beyond your own team. Involving functions like HR, IT,
Finance, Procurement, and Legal makes it more relevant, more robust, and easier to
secure budget.

Discovery takes that further. Mapping workflows across teams often uncovers things
like:

• Duplication e.g., Immigration and Tax both collecting the same data from an
  employee separately.
• Missed steps e.g., Finance needing cost approval while InfoSec issues laptops,
  but without a unified workflow, employees can easily skip requirements.
  In both cases, a single integrated process reduces admin, cuts risk and improves the
  employee experience.

By identifying these interdependencies early, you can show ROI across multiple teams,
not just one — making buy-in and long-term adoption far easier to win.

Capture all of the problems solved and broaden the definition of savings
Too often, business cases focus only on achieving one goal – financial cost reductions.
But the case needs to reflect all of the problems the proposed tech will resolve and all
of the objectives it will achieve that go beyond financial savings. Examples include:

• Time savings: automating manual tasks reduces admin burden, improves
  turnaround, and boosts morale.
• Resource reallocation: freeing up your team to focus on higher-value tasks
  instead of repetitive form-filling or document chasing.
• Error reduction: fewer manual touchpoints thanks to automation and
  integrations between systems reduce the risk of mistakes, which can be costly
  and time-consuming to fix.
• Vendor efficiency: integrations speed up and improve the exchange of data to
  vendors, reducing the time and cost of downstream vendor services and making
  KPIs easier to track.
• Procurement value: modular solutions allow teams to add or swap capabilities
  in the future without time-consuming legal renegotiation.

By including these factors in your model of ROI for the initiative, you’ll offer a more
complete picture of the initiative’s value – one that’s far more persuasive to decision-
makers.

Conclusion: from savings to strategic value
A successful business case isn’t just about trimming budgets. It’s about proving
strategic value: how your initiative will solve business critical problems, achieve
strategic goals, and make operations smoother, faster and more resilient. By engaging
the right stakeholders, running meaningful discovery sessions, and showing a full
spectrum of wins you can build a business case that not only wins approval but delivers
long-term results.