New Technology: The Projected Total Economic Impact™ Of An Autodesk Business Success Plan

Reduced Downtime Costs Through Faster Issue Resolution

Evidence and data. Interviewees described how reliance on reactive support models led to prolonged downtime and broader disruption during high-severity incidents. Their organizations often lacked timely access to expert guidance, which delayed resolution and increased the impact on users and project timelines.

• The engineering tools and systems lead in industrial systems and logistics said: “Now I have a contact person from Autodesk and it’s very easy to contact him. It’s a very fast response, and it’s nice having one person we can reach out to directly.”

• The CAE manager in renewable energy noted: “We did not have a structured escalation path, so resolving high-priority issues depended heavily on internal coordination. That extended downtime and impacted productivity across multiple teams.”

• The head of digital design and integration in workplace design and construction said: “Downtime affected more than just one user or one workflow. When issues occurred, it created delays across projects and required rework to get things back on track.”

• Survey respondents reported an average of seven high-severity incidents annually, with each incident resulting in an average of 8 hours of downtime and an estimated $11,553 cost per downtime hour, highlighting the material financial impact of downtime events.

• The director of technology in media production services stated: “Having access to priority support made a clear difference in how quickly issues were resolved. We were able to reduce downtime and get teams back to work faster.”

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews and survey, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• The composite organization may encounter high-severity issues that affect critical design and engineering workflows. To model the potential value of faster issue resolution, Forrester assumes an annual volume of high-severity issues aligned with survey-reported incident frequency.

• The baseline reflects a preexisting environment with reactive support processes. Issue resolution depends on internal coordination and standard support channels, resulting in longer downtime durations consistent with survey responses.

• The cost of downtime reflects lost productivity across impacted users. A standardized cost per blocked hour is applied to represent the business impact of users being unable to complete project work during downtime.

• Priority technical support reduces downtime duration per incident. The composite organization realizes a percentage reduction in downtime duration based on improvements observed in survey results and supported by interview feedback on faster resolution and access to expertise.

• Improvement ranges reflect variability across organizations. The low and high scenarios are informed by interviewee experiences, while the midpoint reflects the average improvement observed in the survey, capturing a realistic range of outcomes.

Results. This yields a three-year projected PV ranging from $128,707 (low) to $257,414 (high).

Accelerated Time To Productivity For New Users

Evidence and data. Interviewees described how limited structure around onboarding and enablement delayed time to productivity for new users and for teams adopting new Autodesk workflows. Their organizations often relied on manual onboarding, inconsistent training approaches, and internal subject matter experts, which extended ramp time and made adoption more difficult to scale across teams.

• The head of digital design and integration in workplace design and construction said, “Before, we needed a full month to get people fluent and working in [Autodesk] Revit the way we wanted. Now, we have reduced that time to two weeks.” The interviewee explained that structured onboarding resources helped new users start project work earlier and reduced the burden on internal teams to bring users up to a common baseline.

• The BIM and building design manager in engineering consulting said, “I think all the Revit users are now 5% faster, the ones who have taken all the courses.” The interviewee also described how structured learning made it easier for users to understand features and avoid mistakes, improving productivity during ramp-up and early use.

• The engineering tools and systems lead in industrial systems and logistics noted: “The learning platform is fantastic. It is really made for a bigger organization where you can have different learning lines, assign them, and follow up on how users are gaining knowledge.” This reflected the value of structured enablement in helping interviewees’ organizations accelerate readiness across broader user populations.

• Survey respondents reported onboarding an average of 376 new users per year, with an average pre-state time to productivity of 33 hours per user. Respondents also reported an average 12% reduction in time to productivity with fast track services, indicating that structured onboarding and learning support accelerated readiness for new users.

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews and survey, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• The composite organization regularly onboards new Autodesk users throughout the year as teams grow and new employees or transitioning users enter design and engineering workflows. The annual onboarding volume reflects the survey-reported average and is applied consistently across the modeled period.

• The baseline environment reflects a pre-state during which onboarding and early enablement are less structured, requiring more time for users to become productive. This is consistent with both the survey-reported time to productivity and interviewee descriptions of slower, more manual onboarding processes.

• The composite organization improves time to productivity through structured onboarding, learning resources, and fast-track services. The midpoint improvement reflects the average reduction observed in the survey, while the low and high scenarios reflect a conservative and more optimized range informed by interviewee experiences.

• The benefit applies only to newly onboarded or newly transitioning users within the modeled scope. It does not assume a productivity uplift across the full Autodesk user base, which helps keep the benefit distinct from broader workflow efficiency or rework reduction benefits already considered elsewhere in the study.

• The value of faster time to productivity is represented through labor time recovered during onboarding. A standardized fully burdened hourly labor cost is applied to new-user ramp time to reflect the economic impact of getting users productive sooner.

Results. This yields a three-year projected PV ranging from $262,283 (low) to $472,109 (high).

Reduced Administrative Effort Through User Management And Reporting Automation

Evidence and data. Interviewees described how administrative tasks related to user management, reporting, and training coordination were time-intensive and often relied on manual processes. Their organizations lacked centralized tooling and automation, which increased operational burden on IT and operations teams and limited their ability to scale efficiently.

• The engineering tools and systems lead in industrial systems and logistics said: “A lot of the administrative work used to be manual, especially around tracking users and managing access. It required constant attention from our team.”

• According to the CAE manager in renewable energy, “We were spending a lot of time coordinating training and onboarding activities across teams. It was difficult to track progress and ensure consistency without a structured system.”

• The head of digital design and integration in workplace design and construction noted: “Reporting was another area where we lost a lot of time. Generating reports and understanding usage required pulling data from multiple sources.”

• The BIM and building design manager in engineering consulting stated: “Once we introduced more automation and better visibility, it reduced the manual effort significantly. We could focus more on higher-value work instead of maintaining processes.”

• Survey respondents indicated that their organizations spent an average of 82.5 hours per month managing training and learning activities prior to learning plan management, which decreased to 64.6 hours per month after Business Plan adoption, representing a reduction of approximately 17.9 hours per month.

• Survey data also showed that respondents’ organizations performed an average of 38.4 reports per quarter, with 4.8 hours saved per report through automation and improved reporting capabilities, highlighting the impact of reducing manual reporting effort.

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews and survey, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• The composite organization performs ongoing administrative activities related to training management, user management, and reporting across its Autodesk environment. These activities are required to support onboarding, maintain visibility, and manage ongoing operations.

• The baseline environment reflects a mix of manual processes and fragmented systems for managing users, training, and reporting. This is consistent with interviewee descriptions of time-intensive administrative work and survey-reported administrative hours.

• The composite organization reduces administrative effort through automation, improved reporting capabilities, and structured learning management. Improvements are applied to both training-related administrative work and reporting and user management processes.

• Time savings from training administration are based on the observed reduction in hours reported in the survey, while reporting-related savings reflect the volume of reports and time saved per report through automation.

• Improvement ranges reflect variability in organizational maturity and adoption. The midpoint scenario reflects survey-reported averages, while the low and high scenarios capture more conservative and more optimized outcomes based on interviewee experiences.

• Labor savings are valued using a standardized fully burdened hourly rate for IT and administrative personnel, representing the reallocation of time from operational tasks to higher-value activities.

Results. This yields a three-year projected PV ranging from $98,604 (low) to $211,917 (high).

Unquantified Benefits

Interviewees and survey respondents mentioned the following additional benefits that their organizations experienced but were not able to quantify:

• Reduced rework and improved workflow efficiency. Interviewees reported that structured enablement, expert coaching, and more consistent workflows reduced errors, inefficiencies, and the need to redo work. These improvements were driven by better adoption of best practices and more consistent execution across teams, which improved output quality and reduced time spent correcting issues. Survey responses also indicated improvements in error reduction, quality of output, and collaboration, reinforcing that ongoing workflow efficiency gains extended beyond initial onboarding.

• Improved alignment, governance, and consistency across teams and regions. Interviewees described how structured onboarding, guidance, and centralized support helped standardize how Autodesk technology is used across teams and geographies. This improved alignment between business and technical stakeholders, reduced variability in workflows, and enabled the interviewees’ organizations to scale best practices more effectively across distributed teams.

• Increased confidence in decision-making and visibility into performance and adoption. Interviewees noted that improved access to reporting, usage insights, and expert guidance provided better visibility into how tools were used and how teams were performing. This enabled more informed decision-making related to workflows and future investments while also improving oversight of adoption trends across the interviewees’ organizations.

• Enhanced user satisfaction, engagement, and internal capabilities. Interviewees reported higher satisfaction among users due to improved access to training, support, success planning resources, and clearer guidance on technology usage. Regular business reviews, goal-setting activities, and proactive guidance helped their organizations align technology investments with business objectives while improving adoption and user outcomes. This also contributed to stronger internal expertise and reduced reliance on informal knowledge sharing, as the interviewees’ organizations built more structured learning pathways and knowledge transfer mechanisms.

Flexibility

The value of flexibility is unique to each customer. There are multiple scenarios in which a customer might implement Business Plan and later realize additional uses and business opportunities, including:

• Expanding advanced Autodesk capabilities across additional use cases. Interviewees indicated that once foundational processes and governance were in place, their organizations were better positioned to extend adoption of more advanced Autodesk capabilities, such as automation, advanced modeling, and collaboration tools. This created optionality to unlock additional value from existing Autodesk investments as new business needs emerge.

• Scaling structured enablement globally across teams and regions. Interviewees described how early adoption of structured onboarding and learning frameworks created a foundation that could be extended to additional teams, business units, and geographies over time. As the interviewees’ organizations expanded usage, they could apply consistent standards and enablement programs more broadly without needing to rebuild processes.

• Supporting future business transformation and process change initiatives. Interviewees noted that improved governance, visibility, and engagement models provided a framework that could support broader transformation efforts beyond initial Autodesk use cases. This included enabling new workflows, aligning teams more effectively, and adapting to evolving business requirements.

Flexibility would also be quantified when evaluated as part of a specific project (described in more detail in Total Economic Impact Approach).