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Show me the money! The ROI of Boardingware

Paul Organ

February 28, 2017

Boardingware isn’t something that schools purchase purely for economic benefits, however the ‘money people’ at each school demand to see this outlined… I mean, I guess that is their job.Unfortunately, this can often mean that the boarding school staff that actually work in the dorms (and feel the daily grind) can hit a roadblock when they want to implement it within their school. The money people demand it’s financial benefits, but with no prior experience using the product - it can be especially hard to predict. This leads to stagnation and ongoing pain for the boarding staff.

Putting your 'finance hat' on

We made the realisation, that instead of fighting it, let's help you communicate to them in their language.Me and the team put our heads together to figure out how we can provide you with a way to do this. The areas that are most improved are quite easy to point to, however the only way we could see this being useful for schools was to use real data.So recently, I conducted a survey with our current clients to get a better understanding of how Boardingware has affected the way they operate. I set out looking specifically for tangible improvements that can help to please any administration team.And to be honest, when I sent out the survey - I was kind of nervous…After spending time with tonnes of boarding school staff in the past few years, I’ve learnt that they’re not primarily looking to save money...or reduce wastage...or cut down on staff.Their biggest motives usually revolve around allowing them to do their jobs better. They’re interested in things like peace of mind, enhanced security, less frustration and more quality data. And it’s really hard to quantify the ROI on these benefits.So I wasn’t sure what to expect from the results. However, we were pleasantly surprised, because when they came back, the team was astonished by the impact that Boardingware is having on the industry.Here’s a few of our findings:Unsurprisingly, the most time consuming activity prior to using Boardingware was organising leave for students - with the longest coming in at 12 hours/week.

TIMEPSENT_LEAVE.png

We then took the average salary of a boarding school staff member ($60,000USD) and worked out the labour cost spent on leave alone. For the above example, this works out at $13,500/annum on organising just weekly leave.

135_burning_leave.png

The biggest raw cost savings is seen in the kitchen. We saw an average weekly food wastage of 10.50%. For most schools this is caused by a breakdown in communication and the current methods of organisation for students and their forever changing schedules.

boardingwarecateringROI.png

Lets say we have a school of 180 students and a weekly spend of $90/student/week on food. You’re looking at an annual wastage of $64,000..! (*Based on 40 school weeks)The last notable statistic is the impact on overall efficiency. We asked schools how much more efficiently they operate now that they use Boardingware:

efficiency_ROI.png

The average increase in efficiency while using Boardingware was 59.07%. This has an impact over all areas within a boarding school, so as you can imagine, the potential savings are phenomenal. This truly is an incredible feat given that we’re only 3 years old as a company.Now that you’ve seen some of the key areas of impact that Boardingware has on the boarding school industry, why not see how it could impact your own bottom line.Download our free ROI calculator below to punch in your own numbers and see how much you could be saving with Boardingware.If you have any feedback or questions, please shoot them to us in the comments below. We’re always willing to improve and will read and respond to every single one of them.Happy Boarding!

ROI-Calculator

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Paul Organ

I live in Auckland, New Zealand. I enjoy exercise, sauna's and cold plunges, video games and design. Prior to Orah (10 years ago now!) I was a University Student studying my Masters of Architecture. There are two important things that keep me enthused at work - Using creativity to solve complex problems and working with good people.

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