Measuring return on investment: The biggest challenge in global mobility

It’s no secret that Global Mobility (GM) programmes can be expensive, and mobility teams often find themselves in the cost management spotlight. It’s therefore no surprise that cost issues have consistently ranked among the top challenges for GM teams in our Managing Mobility Survey, with measuring return on investment (ROI) the top ranked challenge over the past decade. Despite (or perhaps because of) this, only 14% of organisations actually attempt to measure ROI for international assignments. The scale of the challenge is evident, but what are the reasons for this?

Cost estimates enable companies to determine how much potential international moves will likely cost before they begin, and it is industry standard to do so before both long- and short-term international assignments. As covered in our Mobility Basics post, cost estimates provide indispensable insight to different stakeholders across the business and are used for a range of purposes, for example improving management approval workflow, budgeting and evaluating different scenarios.

However, far fewer companies compare these figures to actual costs. This is not necessarily due to a lack of desire to do so - the original estimates are often prepared by the GM function, while actual costs are frequently dispersed, making comprehensive tracking difficult. Additionally, many organisations lack integrated systems to easily compile and compare these distributed expenses. Without being able to measure the actual cost of assignments practically, it is unsurprising that so few attempt to measure ROI.

While companies struggle with both cost tracking and ROI measurement, there is a disconnect in their perceived success rates. Organisations generally feel more confident in their ability to measure assignment costs than in assessing assignment value, despite similar percentages conducting formal ROI analysis and comparing estimated to actual costs.

For GM teams looking to address these challenges, the first step is laying the groundwork for consistent, reliable cost tracking. Capturing actual costs may require collaboration across functions and vendors, but building this capability is essential to any meaningful ROI evaluation. The evolution toward more sophisticated vendor management platforms offers promising solutions to these longstanding challenges. Integrated functionality within systems like ECA Expert – including enhanced vendor management capabilities currently in development – will increasingly enable GM teams to capture, track, and analyse assignment costs more comprehensively.

By laying these foundational measurement capabilities now, organisations can position themselves to tackle the more complex ROI question sooner, moving beyond simply managing costs to demonstrating the true value that international assignments deliver to their business objectives.

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