It’s something all decision-makers have felt — the slow, maddening inefficiency of manual work that quietly eats away at profit margins. Endless admin, repetitive tasks that seem impossible to automate, human error, and time wasted because of disconnected systems. Although most South African businesses believe automation is “costly,” Kodah embodies the opposite: it’s actually costly to stay manual.
Leveraging ClickUp automation and a model that calculates ROI based on measurable outcomes, Kodah helps companies identify the true cost of human effort — and the tangible returns automation provides over time.
The Cost Behind Work That People Do With Their Hands
Manual work might seem harmless enough, but it’s filled with hidden expenses that often go unnoticed:
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Human error: Typos, missed deadlines, and double entries create invisible costs over time.
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Admin overload: Employees waste 20–30% of their working day on repetitive tasks.
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Cluttered handovers: Everyone relates to data differently, creating operational friction.
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Scalability ceiling: Growth stalls when there aren’t enough new people to expand processes.
In one example, a South African retailer discovered that their manual reporting process was costing nearly R420,000 per year — and that didn’t even include salaries. The figure reflected duplicate work, overtime hours, and lost deals.
Kodah’s Formula: Why You Should Predict ROI Before Automating
Kodah avoids guesswork. With a CallRail ROI calculator built on ClickUp, its consultants can model exactly how much manual work is costing — and what automation can yield.
The ROI Formula
ROI=(Savings+Gains−Investment)Investment×100ROI = \frac{(Savings + Gains – Investment)}{Investment} \times 100
Where:
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Savings come from hours of admin saved and errors avoided.
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Gains include faster delivery, optimal use of people, and unlocked capacity.
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Investment refers to automation implementation and training in ClickUp.
Kodah complements this formula with real performance data from workspace analytics — including time usage tracking, process bottleneck identification, and user activity tracking — allowing teams to build a live ROI dashboard right inside ClickUp.
Breaking Down the ROI Model
Here’s how Kodah calculates the real ROI of automation:
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Time Savings (TS): Total hours reduced × average hourly rate.
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Error Savings (ES): Cost per error × reduction in error rate post-automation.
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Efficiency Gain (EG): Additional tasks achieved per period due to automation.
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Automation Cost (AC): Total investment in setup and staff onboarding.
ROI=(TS+ES+EG)−ACAC×100ROI = \frac{(TS + ES + EG) – AC}{AC} \times 100
Typically, Kodah delivers a 200–400% ROI within the first six months — meaning for every rand spent on automation, you can get up to four times that back in time and productivity.
Example: The 12-Minute Workflow That Paid for Itself
A Johannesburg-based digital agency approached Kodah after realising it was wasting hours every day on back-and-forth project approval emails. Kodah implemented one simple ClickUp automation: whenever a task status changed to Review, it triggered automatic email updates and Slack notifications to all stakeholders.
In the first month alone, the team saved over 36 staff hours — worth more than R10,000 in labour value. Kodah’s internal ROI dashboard showed the client would recover their full implementation cost in just 19 days.
Why ROI on Automation Isn’t Just About Money
While ROI often focuses on financial gains, Kodah also measures qualitative returns:
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Employee wellbeing: Reduced admin fatigue and burnout.
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Decision clarity: Managers spend more time using insights, not chasing updates.
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Cultural change: Teams feel empowered to innovate instead of battling outdated systems.
These softer benefits are harder to measure, but they underpin long-term retention and agility — both critical for South African organisations adapting to a hybrid, AI-driven economy.
Kodah’s ROI Dashboards in ClickUp
Kodah builds real-time ROI dashboards directly inside ClickUp, featuring:
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Timesheet integrations to instantly calculate saved hours.
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Custom formulas to track automation value over time.
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Dashboards for monthly cost reduction, error elimination, and throughput improvement.
Automation is no longer just a line item on a cost sheet — it’s a performance measure that anyone in the business can access.
The Bottom Line: You’re Already Paying for Inefficiency
Manual effort always carries a cost — whether you can see it or not.
Automation turns that hidden cost into growth.
Kodah’s ClickUp-powered ROI model gives South African teams a clear view of where effort leaks — and how much of it can be recovered by systemising smarter.
In business, though, the real question isn’t whether you can afford automation.
Can you afford not to?