Organizations at present stare down huge challenges round attracting and retaining expertise, attaining organizational resiliency, defending towards information loss, and supporting collaboration and innovation. Our prospects are utilizing Stack Overflow for Groups to fulfill these challenges.
We all know from our prospects’ tales that Stack Overflow for Groups is delivering worth: decreasing the time individuals spend asking and answering questions, dismantling information silos, and dashing up the time-to-proficiency of latest workers. However how a lot worth does Stack Overflow for Groups ship, by way of financial affect, and on what timeline?
We commissioned the consultants at Forrester Consulting to assist us reply these questions, which they did in a brand new research, The Complete Financial Influence™ of Stack Overflow For Groups.
Key findings from the research
To reach at their evaluation of the prices and advantages of investing in Stack Overflow for Groups, Forrester interviewed 5 totally different organizations with expertise utilizing the platform. Forrester then aggregated interviewee experiences right into a single composite group for the needs of the research.
In the end, Forrester discovered that Stack Overflow delivered $14.42 million in advantages to the composite buyer over three years and prices $4.95 million over the identical time interval. This places the online current worth (NPV) of Stack Overflow for Groups simply shy of $9.5 million, with a return on funding (ROI) of 191%. Forrester quantified the advantages of Stack Overflow for Groups as follows:
- Time saved for workers who’re trying to find data: $2.3 million
- Time saved for workers who present information to their friends: $9.5 million
- Accelerated time-to-proficiency for brand spanking new hires: $2.6 million
Let’s dig a bit deeper into how Stack Overflow for Groups helped the composite notice these advantages, and let’s cowl the unquantified however still-meaningful advantages discovered within the Forrester research.
Quantified advantages
Time saved for workers trying to find information
Earlier than Stack Overflow for Groups, builders and technologists burned time scouring information sources, instruments, and making an attempt to trace down the best material knowledgeable (SME) to reply their questions. With Stack Overflow for Groups, they’re able to discover solutions to questions which have already been requested and answered. The flexibility to entry and reuse this high-quality data saves vital time.Â
Forrester discovered that implementing Stack Overflow for Groups brought on the variety of questions builders ask their colleagues to drop by 65% in 12 months one and by 85% in 12 months three, because the information base grew and workers had been in a position to self-serve solutions to their questions. The time it took to seek out solutions decreased by 66%, amounting to $2.3 million in financial savings over three years for the composite group.
Time saved for workers offering information
When information isn’t preserved and made obtainable for search and reuse, SMEs discover themselves answering the identical questions over and over, throughout emails, chat applications, and tagged feedback. The barrage of interruptions and fixed context-switching retains your most educated workers from specializing in their core tasks and makes them much less content material at work.Â
With Stack Overflow for Groups, Forrester discovered that the variety of questions requested of particular person builders dropped by 65% in 12 months one and 85% in 12 months three as a result of their friends had been in a position to reuse information that had been captured and preserved. The time saved provides as much as $9.5 million for the composite group over three years.Â
Quicker time-to-proficiency for brand spanking new hires
Stack Overflow for Groups offers new workers a self-service platform the place they’ll simply entry content-rich information, perception, and expertise from their coworkers. Giving new hires the instruments to coach themselves with the information they want as they want it shortens the time-to-proficiency for these new hires. It additionally avoids imposing extra burdens on extra seasoned workers who would possibly in any other case spend hours answering questions from their new coworkers.
As you would possibly count on, this profit is particularly pronounced for entry-level and junior builders: for this group, Forrester discovered that Stack Overflow for Groups improves time-to-proficiency by 5% within the first 12 months and 9% within the third 12 months. Over three years, this implies $2.6 million in financial savings for the composite group.
Qualitative advantages
Accelerated innovation
Interviewees advised Forrester that Stack Overflow for Groups “elevated collaboration and data change amongst builders” at their organizations, an enchancment that accelerated innovation and shortened time-to-market for brand spanking new options.
This accelerated innovation is due largely to the communication, collaboration, and information sharing enabled by Stack Overflow for Groups. The Forrester research discovered that the platform “was a foremost level of contact and information switch for colleagues unfold throughout totally different groups and geographies and who had been usually working remotely.” Interviewees reported that Stack Overflow for Groups made them really feel extra linked to their colleagues. Breaking down the information silos that inhibit collaboration and information change permits organizations to ship extra worth to their prospects extra rapidly.
Improved worker expertise
The Forrester research reveals that workers of interviewed organizations are typically extremely happy with Stack Overflow for Groups. The platform’s excessive adoption fee is partly pushed by the truth that most builders are already snug with Stack Overflow’s public web site, the place they know they’ll discover high-quality information and solutions to particular questions. “Builders are used to the
public model,” explains one interviewee, a director of software program improvement within the AI business, “in order that made our adoption of Stack Overflow for Groups extra seamless. Our workers find it irresistible and there’s no actual motive to decide on one thing else—we all know the adoption would by no means ever be as quick.”
Implementing Stack Overflow for Groups makes builders’ working lives simpler and extra productive. This contributes to developer satisfaction at work, enhancing your capability to draw and retain the perfect builders, and improves crew and organizational resiliency. As well as, a information sharing and collaboration platform like Stack Overflow for Groups improves developer productiveness, fosters collaboration between people and groups, and provides workers entry to studying alternatives that not solely enhance their job satisfaction but additionally empower them to pour extra worth again into your group.
To be taught extra in regards to the financial affect of Stack Overflow for Groups, obtain the Forrester Consulting research, The Complete Financial Influence™ of Stack Overflow for Groups.
