4.6 Costs and benefits
Our survey results validate the concerns in the literature (Ferguson, 2006; Hozak and
Collier, 2008; Lee and Ozer, 2007; Zare Mehrjerdi, 2008) about the potential for RFID
investment to generate a positive ROI. When respondents were asked whether they
expect cost savings from their RFID project, a vast majority of the companies (75 percent)
said no (as compared to 56 percent of the companies in 2004). When respondents
were asked as to how much savings do they anticipate from their RFID project in the
year after implementation as a percentage of their investment, 2/3 (67 percent) of the
companies answered 0 percent or less (i.e. no savings or negative savings) (45 percent of
companies in 2004), 18 percent of the companies anticipated between 1 and 5 percent cost
savings (17 percent of companies in 2004) and the rest of the companies (15 percent)
anticipated cost savings above 5 percent (38 percent of the companies in 2004). These
results paint a rather negative picture with respect to ROI and cost savings associated
with RFID projects and shows that the numbers have slid further as compared to 2004.