How to Build a Business Case for New IT Automation Tools

You’ve seen the problem firsthand. Your IT and Ops teams are drowning in a sea of repetitive questions, manual ticket assignments, and endless context-switching. Employees are frustrated, waiting hours or even days for simple answers about VPN access or software licenses. You know there’s a better way. You’ve seen the promise of modern IT automation tools, but you have one major hurdle: convincing the decision-makers to invest.

Getting budget approval for new tech isn’t just about finding a cool tool. It’s about building a rock-solid business case that speaks directly to the bottom line, employee productivity, and the company's strategic goals. It’s about turning features into financial benefits and frustration into a clear return on investment (ROI). Here’s a playbook for building an undeniable business case that gets you the "yes" you need.

Start with the Pain: Quantify the Cost of Doing Nothing

Before you even mention a solution, you have to paint a vivid picture of the problem. Your leadership team is busy, and they probably don't see the daily friction your teams and employees are dealing with. Your job is to make the invisible costs of your current system impossible to ignore. Don't just say things are "inefficient." Prove it with numbers.

To do that, you'll need some hard data. Spend a week or two tracking a few key metrics. Understanding your baseline is a core principle of any good ITSM strategy.

• Ticket Volume: How many requests does your IT/Ops team get every day or week?

• Repetitive Questions: What percentage of these tickets are simple, recurring questions? (e.g., "How do I reset my password?", "What's the wifi password?", "How do I request a new software license?"). You might be shocked to find this is over 50% of your total volume.

• Time to First Response: How long does it take for an employee to get an initial reply from a real person?

• Time to Resolution: What's the average time it takes to fully resolve a ticket from start to finish?

• Agent Time Per Ticket: How many minutes does an agent spend manually logging, categorizing, and responding to a simple ticket?

Imagine your IT team of three agents handles 200 tickets per week. After tracking, you discover that 60% of them (120 tickets) are repetitive questions that take an average of 15 minutes each for an agent to handle.

That’s 30 hours of agent time per week spent just answering the same questions repeatedly. That's nearly a full-time employee's entire workload! A number like that immediately grabs attention.

But don't stop there. Think about the cost from the employee's side. If an employee waits an average of four hours for a resolution that stops them from working, and you have 50 of those incidents a week, that’s 200 hours of lost productivity across the company. These are the hidden costs that decision-makers need to see. [EXTERNAL LINK: A study from Gartner or Forrester on the cost of employee downtime].

Frame the Solution Around Outcomes, Not Just Features

With the problem clearly defined, you can introduce the solution: a modern IT automation tool. Avoid the trap of just listing a hundred features. Instead, connect the tool's capabilities directly to the pain points identified. Frame everything in terms of outcomes.

For example:

Problem: Employees are tired of logging into clunky web portals, and support requests get lost in noisy Slack channels.

Solution: A Slack-native platform where any message can become a trackable ticket with a simple emoji reaction.

Outcome: Boost adoption and employee satisfaction by meeting people where they already work. No new logins, no separate websites to remember. This frictionless experience, like Ravenna’s design, ensures help is as easy as sending a message.

Build the Quantitative Case: Show Me the Money (ROI)

Break down your ROI into two parts:

1. Hard Cost Savings

• Reduced Labor Costs / Increased Agent Capacity: Reclaiming 30 hours/week (0.75 FTE) at $80,000/year saves $60,000/year.

• Tool Consolidation: List annual costs of replaced tools (e.g., knowledge base software): $5,000/year.

2. Productivity Gains

• Reduced Employee Downtime: Saving 30 minutes/ticket, at 100 tickets/week, results in:

  • 50 hours/week saved

  • $130,000/year in reclaimed productivity ($50/hour average employee cost)

ROI Calculation Table:

Weave in the Qualitative Case: The Story Beyond the Numbers

• Better Employee Experience: Happy employees are productive. Built-in CSAT surveys track improvements.

• Built for Growth: Scalable tools, future-proofing, AI-native platforms.

• Shift to Problem-Solving: Modern analytics provide proactive insights, automating root cause analysis.

• Compliance & Risk Reduction: SLA tracking, auditable approval chains, enhanced compliance.

Anticipate Objections and Prepare Answers

• Budget Concerns: Highlight ROI; tool pays for itself quickly.

• System Compatibility: Modern tools complement existing systems (e.g., Jira, ServiceNow).

• Implementation Concerns: Quick setup, immediate benefits.

• Security Concerns: Enterprise-grade security and compliance standards.

Propose a Low-Risk Pilot

Suggest a 14-day trial for IT and one other team, tracking key metrics and proving immediate value.

By grounding your business case in hard data, strategic outcomes, and offering a clear, low-risk path, you'll transform your request into an irresistible business opportunity. Ravenna.ai stands out as a top choice for IT automation by seamlessly integrating AI-powered ticket deflection and knowledge management directly within Slack, significantly boosting productivity and employee satisfaction.

Don't just take our word for it. Sign up for a free trial today and see firsthand how Ravenna.ai can transform your IT operations!