Whitepaper: What is the True Cost of Spreadsheets?
INTRODUCTION
People commonly perceive the cost of spreadsheets to be minimal since they come preinstalled on their corporate desktop.
However, the true cost of spreadsheets to businesses would be a surprise to most. One way to calculate these costs is by using the “Total Cost of Ownership”, or TCO, approach by incorporating a set of factors over a certain time period. Factors include ongoing overheads for maintenance, the time and effort spent recovering from errors in business-critical models, opportunity costs associated with a loss of productivity, lengthened turn-around times for model changes, to name just a few. There are other less tangible costs and risks such as errors which lead to diminished customer satisfaction (and retention), professional reputation, and competitive positioning. This paper identifies the cost factors and describes how a professional modeling tool helps you to avoid them.