Microsoft Visio's Added Value

I was recently approached by my boss and presented with a project to revamp our 20 year old department processes manuals to become current and give our company a refreshed feel.  I began to gather all the current flow charts and diagrams containing business processes so I could work with my team in making them current by conducting meetings with each department to better understand how the department functions to portray it the best way possible. The problem was we had several departments in the tri-state area so getting to each location could be costly and time consuming. I started documenting the information the best way I knew how, a word document file and paint!

Luckily, one of my colleagues heard about my project on hand and came to my rescue.  He told me about Microsoft’s Visio Application tool, which is an advanced diagramming tool, and this was exactly what I needed. I began to do some research on it and saw that this software cost $300. I came to my boss with this and showed him how we could benefit from purchasing this software.  I remembered all the things my colleague told me he liked and could attest to so I used them in my persuasion to my boss.

Time saved was the biggest benefit from using this tool. I get paid a high salary and my time could be used more efficiently if we could use software that will make the diagramming process more quickly with the added benefit of a professional end looking product. I presented a small excel table with an average estimate of how many hours it will take to revitalize our business processes flows and diagrams and came to a whopping 24 hours plus $1,400 in business travel expenses for me and my team. Using Visio, we could automatically eliminate the travel expenses because we would be able to share our diagrams and update them in real-time with our other departments while ensuring consistency and accuracy with diagram validation.  The best part is that we could have this shared and whenever there is a change to a process, a manager could simply go in and update.

Microsoft’s Visio will save us time and money for the project at hand in addition to adding to the curb appeal of our previous system. I estimate a cost benefit of a little over $1,000 by opting for the professional software version instead of free-handing it. My boss was extremely happy with the facts presented to him and after demonstrating a free demo version and showing him how professional and appealing our diagrams would look, he gave me the go-ahead to write up the request for expenditure on this software.