Supporting the business case

I’m not a salesman, I’m a safety professional that has, over the course of his career, come up against inaction and developed ways to overcome it. In a way it is the same problem suppliers come up against: How do we convert the interest in our product into sales?

In most organisations it will be the safety professional who identifies the need for a new safety service or product, they are also probably the ones who will get in touch with a number of suppliers of such kit.

The supplier’s representative will happily go and meet them and then follow up with a quote.

The trouble with this is that, at that point, it is completely out of the suppliers hands as to whether that call will be converted into a sale. They become wholly reliant on the safety professional’s ability to develop a sound business case and influence the budget holder.

Sadly, other than some vague notion that accidents cost business through lost productivity or increased insurance claims, a fair amount of safety professionals don’t know how to form a sound business case; this is exacerbated by the fact that none of the fundamental safety qualifications in this country really teach you how – although RoSPA and IOSH have recently undertaken some work to address this, see (1) and (2).

A simple internet search for ‘PPE providers in the UK’ yields some 106 million returns so a supplier who can help a safety professional to develop the business case in order to get the safety improvement through in is going to stand out from the rest.  

The need for action is often driven by one of two things: a worsening trend in accident data (reactive) or identification of the need for PPE through the risk assessment process (proactive). How you develop a business case for each is slightly different.

Developing a business case in a reactive setting

The HSE undertook some detailed research a few years ago that found for every £1 of direct costs you can associate with an accident there are between £8 and £36 of indirect costs (The Cost of Accidents).

Let’s take the example of a firm who has a worsening trend of hand injuries which could be prevented with the right gloves. The gloves cost £22 a pair and they will need a supply of 250, total cost: £5.5k.

Before you send your quote to the organisation add in the following information:
Average hourly salary of front line employees
Average length of time (in hours) lost as a result of the accidents the gloves will help prevent. Multiply the two together to give you the direct cost of the accidents.
Multiply that figure by anything between 8 and 36 (20 is probably best as it is more or less the mid point) to take into account hidden costs associated with the accidents.

If that figure is above the amount you have quoted for, then that would be a pretty powerful positive business case for the safety professional to give to the budget holder.

Developing a business case in a proactive setting

Helping show a positive business case when there is no accident trend is a bit harder, because there is no loss that you can help stop; instead you are working from a subjective view of what is dangerous and what isn’t.

When this is the case, you need to think about the problem the other way around and help the safety professional demonstrate why the other options are not the most reasonably practical ones.

Take the example above but imagine there had been few accidents and the organisation’s risk assessment programme had found that gloves could help keep it that way. The case for action you and the safety professional should be making is that it is £5.5k for some gloves or twenty times that (for example) to change the way they manufacture the items the team have to handle. Of course that also gives the employer the option to take a longer time view and invest in the necessary changes to design out the risk in the first place if they wish.

Conclusion

Essentially what you are doing is removing all the reasons why people will not act and often the supplier and the safety professional are on the same side, they both want the end outcome just for different reasons. Where this kind of collaboration is successful the relationship can last for a long time and go with the safety professional as they move organisations through the course of their career.

References

(1) IOSH. Be the Best: How to become a world-class health and safety professional. IOSH: Leicester

Byrne, R. J. (2013).

(2) RoSPA. Costing Accidents: The RoSPA Occupational Safety & Health Journal January pp 13 –15.