ROI is one of the most powerful numbers in business; it drives investment decisions, secures funding, and prioritizes strategic initiatives. Yet despite its influence, it’s somehow often one of the least scrutinized numbers in the room. It’s genuinely not unheard of for forecasts to just be accepted at face value, with assumptions going unchallenged. And don’t get me started about how little appetite or process there tends to be post-project to compare projections with reality (well, I already did get started, so for those interested, my thoughts on that can be read in a previous blog).
Now imagine if ROI was treated like financial statements; every assumption logged, every benefit estimate traceable, every forecast subject to post-project reconciliation. What would that world look like? (spoiler: it would look better). And perhaps most importantly, why isn’t that the world we already live in?
We audit financials, so why not ROI?
Companies go to extraordinary lengths to validate financial data; revenues, expenses, and profits are meticulously tracked, reported, and audited. Discrepancies aren’t just frowned upon, they’re investigated which means that accountability is the norm, not the exception.
But ROI? For too many that just gets a slide in a PowerPoint, maybe a line or two in a spreadsheet. It’s often built on assumptions that are rarely documented (or at least not properly documented), forecasts that aren’t linked to real baselines, and expectations that are never revisited. I can think of a few terms for it but it’s effectively strategy on autopilot or strategy by numbers, too much paying lip service, and it leaves too much to chance.
The thing is, this isn’t just an example out of a textbook, as the consequences are real. Projects that looked great on paper underdeliver, resources get tied up (and wasted) in initiatives with no feedback loop, and organizations miss opportunities to learn from what worked and what didn’t (so set themselves up to repeat the same mistakes over and over again). Ultimately, weak ROI discipline erodes trust; not just in the business case, but in the broader decision-making process.
Why ROI gets a free pass
Part of the problem here is cultural; ROI has long been treated as directional rather than definitive, a way to justify rather than interrogate. The assumption is that everyone knows ROI forecasts are rough estimates, so why bother holding them to account?
But there’s also a structural issue; business cases are still too often treated as one-time documents, not ongoing tools, so once the budget is approved, the spreadsheet is closed and attention moves to the next shiny new project.
Far, far too few organizations have frameworks in place to track ROI post-approval (even in a shoddy way), and even fewer have the appetite to go back and ask those potentially difficult questions: Did this actually deliver? Were our assumptions accurate? What would we do differently next time?
Compare this with financial reporting, where reconciliation is non-negotiable. Somehow we've got to the position where it's apparently fine that that mindset is largely absent when it comes to value projections, and it shows (and when you think about the sums that are often involved, it's also barely believable). This failure to track outcomes against forecasts leaves decision-makers blind and makes continuous improvement nearly impossible.
What would it take to audit ROI?
If we applied financial auditing standards to ROI then a few fundamentals would need to shift, such as:
📝 Documented assumptions
Every input to the model would be traceable; not just the number, but its rationale and source. This would mean linking each forecast to data or past performance, not just intuition.
↔️ Forecast ranges, not point estimates
Business environments are unpredictable so instead of using single-point ROI figures, organizations would forecast best, likely, and worst-case outcomes, i.e. similar to how revenue forecasting includes scenario modeling.
🔎 Post-project review as standard
ROI would be revisited during and after implementation with variances recorded and investigated. The upside is that this wouldn’t just validate results but would actually also improve forecasting over time.
📏 Benefits tied to measurable KPIs
Vague claims like “increased productivity” would be replaced with clear, auditable outcomes. Just as financials require documented revenue streams, ROI would require auditable evidence of impact.
🎓 Cross-functional visibility and shared learning
Results would be shared across teams and departments, and not to punish failure, but to learn. In a health org the goal isn’t blame, it’s insight and identifying potential areas of improvement.
Now these ideas really aren't rocket science and shouldn’t be seen as impossible to achieve. They mirror the rigor already applied to budgeting, accounting, and procurement. As we explored in BCA#5: The role proving ROI plays in a winning business case, strong ROI cases are grounded in evidence, and the more rigor we apply to both sides of the equation (i.e. forecast and result) the more reliable our strategic decisions become.
Would this make business cases better?
Unquestionably. A single-word paragraph feels mightily arrogant to me though, so let’s go into a little more detail. An “audited” approach to ROI would introduce discipline, credibility, and accountability into a process that in all honestly, for many today often seems to just rest on hope or optimism.
It would fundamentally change how business cases are written; forecasters would think more critically, business sponsors would be incentivized to temper bold promises with achievable projections, and decision-makers would become more confident that approved investments can actually deliver what they claim.
The business case itself would also evolve as it would no longer just be a static justification for funding, instead, it would become a tool for continuous value management. ROI would be the initial headline but Real ROI would become the number that people actually cared about.
Over time, the entire strategic investment process would mature (and undoubtedly improve); instead of just rewarding the loudest pitch, leadership could prioritize the most credible one. Risk-adjusted ROI, historical benchmarking, and transparent modeling would shift both how success is defined, and achieved.
So why aren’t we doing this already?
The common arguments are easy enough to list: it’s hard, benefits are intangible, assumptions change, results are hard to isolate etc etc.
But the eagle-eyed amongst you may have spotted that these are the same arguments once made against financial transparency. Before auditing became the norm, businesses lived with the same ambiguity in their financial statements but that changed because the cost of inaccuracy became too high. And I have a very strong feeling that that same tipping point is coming for ROI.
Technology investments increasingly determine market winners and losers yet the reality is that digital transformations fail at alarming rates (depending on if you have a glass half full/half empty mindset, BCG found only 30% succeeding, McKinsey found 70% were failing). If organizations continue to approve investments based on unverified estimates, then they really have no right to be surprised when results don’t match expectations.
What’s needed isn’t a revolutionary overhaul, it’s a mindset shift. If they want to succeed then leaders must begin to see ROI as a living measure, not a one-time sales pitch. They must build mechanisms to track benefits with the same care they track costs. And they must embed feedback loops that challenge and improve the assumptions baked into every business case.
Final Thoughts: we can have a smarter future
We hold ourselves to high standards in financial reporting because accuracy matters. Trust matters. Accountability matters. It’s time to hold business cases to the same standards.
Now unfortunately this isn’t a panacea, so auditing ROI won’t entirely eliminate risk. But it will reduce strategic blind spots, surface false confidence, and empower organizations to learn from both their hits and their misses.
We may never quite reach the point where ROI carries the same regulatory weight as financial disclosures, but if we want to actually learn, improve, and invest smarter then we absolutely should build a culture where ROI deserves the same scrutiny, precision, and commitment to truth.
That shift doesn’t require perfect forecasting, it just requires the humility to admit we could do better, and a will to actually do better. Oh, and the systems to make that improvement possible…
