Quantifying Industrial ROI: Framework for Proving Value

Selling innovative technology to industrial companies requires more than just impressive features – it demands clear, measurable business value. In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Brian Lozes revealed how his team built their ROI framework around one of the industry’s most expensive problems.

Starting with a Billion-Dollar Problem

The foundation of their ROI framework begins with a staggering industry statistic. As Brian explains, “As a country, we spend trillions of dollars every year on capital projects, and there’s empirical data that’s showing upwards of 8% to 10% of that money is wasted every year just due to construction related rework.”

This waste comes from a specific pain point: stakeholders can’t effectively visualize complex facilities until they’re built. By then, changes become exponentially more expensive.

Measuring Impact Through Time Savings

Their first ROI metric focuses on time savings in planning and coordination. A recent case study demonstrates this impact. Brian describes a scenario where multiple stakeholders needed to conduct a planning exercise at a remote facility: “You had people at the facility, people in the headquarters, people with the vendor in other parts of the country, and then our folks all participating.”

The traditional approach would have required significant travel time and expense: “The old way would have been, hey everybody, probably 1520 people, let’s jump on helicopters and let’s fly out to the site. And you’re going to be there for multiple days to conduct a couple of hours with work.”

Instead, using their platform, “Everybody just jumped in a meeting. They were all represented in the space as though they were at that site, knocked out the scope of work in a couple of hours.”

Immediate Value Realization

The ROI became immediately apparent. As Brian notes, “They said that they not only fully recovered the value of that contract, they started bringing additional savings into their organization in one meeting.” This rapid value realization has become a powerful selling point.

Expansion Metrics

Their success in demonstrating value has led to consistent growth. “We multiply year over year with revenue, with the number of individual customers that we have on board, and it just seems to be accelerating,” Brian shares. The pattern is consistent: “The success of that pilot every time is resulting in multiplication what they use inside their organization.”

Beyond Cost Savings

Looking ahead, they’re expanding their ROI framework to include safety metrics. Brian’s vision extends to “a vast reduction in the amount of time people are spending in dangerous environments.” This addition of safety ROI alongside operational savings strengthens their value proposition.

Framework Evolution

The company continues to evolve their ROI measurements. “We’re investing deeply in our product to increase the scalability to enable that, the readiness to enable that, and then to widen the value proposition so that makes sense so everybody will use it,” Brian explains.

For B2B founders selling to industrial enterprises, their approach offers valuable lessons:

1. Ground ROI in widely recognized industry problems
2. Focus on immediate, measurable impact
3. Track both direct savings and operational improvements
4. Use successful pilots to demonstrate scalable value
5. Expand ROI metrics as product capabilities grow

The key insight? Effective ROI frameworks in industrial settings need to bridge the gap between innovative technology and traditional business metrics, showing clear value in terms that resonate with stakeholders at every level of the organization.

Their success in expanding from pilot projects to enterprise-wide deployments across Fortune 100 companies demonstrates the power of this approach. By consistently proving value in measurable terms, they’ve built a foundation for sustained growth in one of the world’s most demanding markets.