Yes, they do vary widely, and often sadly.

That said, my feeling is that there isn’t a problem with the notion of ROI, after, the ROI on administration staff is pretty easy to calculate and pretty obvious. The problem, as I see it, is that on one side, you have people who only see ROI as a single step process – you do something, you make money. On the other hand, there are those who see ROI as so complex as to not be worth calculating at all.

Management – “why should be spend x dollars on a revved-up internal employee social media knowledge management system when you can’t guarantee that employees sharing and collaborating knowledge about our business and clients will grow revenues X amount next quarter”

Employee (thinking) “if I could demonstrate a provable ROI on social media, I wouldn’t be stuck working here in this place”

This blog post also makes me remember a previous employer who hired a “lean sigma guru” who came in, gave a company wide presentation and said:

guru: “what department do you work in?”
employee: “administration”
guru: “you provide no financial benefit to the company. Your ROI is zero”
guru: “what department do you work in?”
employee: “sales”
guru: “do you exceed your targets?”
employee: “yes”
guru: “you bring value and ROI to the company”

as you say, ROI perspectives are very different

This post was mentioned on Twitter by znmeb: ROI + Pants http://meb.tw/crLLma...

That said, Im curious about what aspect of ROI formulas you take exception to. I ask this honestly as I don’t have a business background, so I don’t have much experience approaching this from that point of view. Acknowledging that though, it would seem that if these formulas are not correct, we should be establishing new ones, rather than collectively (not you specifically obviously) waving our hands at the notion of ROI altogether.

The ROI on the phone is actually a legitimate question. How much do you need to pay your call center/receptionist/customer service people? That’s more along the lines of where I was going with the ROI on the phone comment.

I’m a big believer in businesses holding marketers’ feet to the fire to show that they’re making money on their advertising – but it’s got to be done in the right way, asking the right questions.

Most business owners don’t know the right questions to ask, so they try to institute complex ROI formulas that they learned in business school – which they may or may not understand.

Any way – agreed, sometimes these things can be simply the cost of doing business, and despite the rant-y nature of the post, I do believe there is a larger context for looking at ROI. I’m the last person in the world to try to push all projects towards a DR notion of ROI. But because I do work mostly on brand level issues, and I because I believe this work to be an investment on my clients part rather than an expense, I strive to show value for my work. Mostly what I would love people in this industry to take to heart is that everything a business does costs money, and everything that costs money needs to be justified. Even if our only justification in pure self-preservation, it seems like a good idea to get all things brand related on the “investment” side of things rather than the “expense” side of things.

It’s like if one was to describe the most important attributes of their favorite restaurant – they would most likely say food, ambience and service rather than a clean kitchen or bathrooms. These things are a given, or as some people refer to them as “greens fees.” They are the cost to play in the market in the first place.

People become obsessed with metrics because they are a tangible yardstick of measurement. Economist Robert Chambers said “quantification brings credibility.” But count the numbers and only numbers count.

We haven’t solved John Wanamaker’s conundrum yet, but we’re sure on the right track.

On a personal note, I have never seen any ROI in wearing pants.