Model your 3-year total cost of ownership — current legacy PBX / on-prem UC vs target (Webex Calling, Flex, modernized on-prem). Get payback period, NPV, and the 3 slides your CFO will want.
UC migrations live or die on the business case. This tool collects your current state (licensing, support, infrastructure, staff time), models three target states (stay on-prem + modernize, Webex Calling, Cisco Flex), and returns 3-year TCO, one-time cost to migrate, payback month, and a simple NPV — presented in a format board members can follow. Keep it honest: the model assumes your real numbers, not aspirational ones.
Fill in your current + target state, click Calculate ROI.
Migration cost hits. Operational savings begin mid-year.
Full operational year. Savings fully realized.
Cumulative NPV is what your CFO will focus on.
Conventional wisdom says cloud always wins the TCO comparison. Reality is more nuanced. Webex Calling saves infrastructure and operational labor, but per-user licensing ($12–$25/user/month) over 3 years often exceeds the cost of running a modern on-prem CUCM/Unity cluster for the same users. For organizations with capable UC staff and existing DC infrastructure, the math usually favors modernize-on-prem until you cross 2,500 users or multiple geo-distributed sites.
Where cloud wins unambiguously: scale (>5,000 users across 5+ geos), high-churn environments (M&A activity), and teams with zero UC engineering capacity (cloud hides the ops work behind the subscription price). For everyone else, model both paths and let the numbers decide.
The one variable most finance models underweight is internal staff time. "We'll save 0.5 FTE" sounds small until you price it at fully-loaded cost ($150K–$220K). A UC modernization that saves 1.5 FTE of operational time is worth $225K–$330K per year. That's often the single biggest line in the savings column.
± 15% on 3-year TCO if your inputs are accurate. The hardest input to get right is "internal staff time" — ask your team to track it for 2 weeks before running the numbers.
We apply a simple discount rate. For risk adjustment, use your CFO's preferred rate (usually WACC + project risk premium, 10–15%).
On-prem modernization assumes your DC hardware is current (< 5 years). If you need hardware refresh, add to one-time migration cost.
Assumed $15/user/month standard, $25 for premium. Real pricing varies by volume + contract — always confirm with your Cisco rep.
$228K current annual → $160K modernized annual. $75K migration cost.
$680K current → $540K cloud annual ($15 × 2000 × 12 + overhead). $180K migration.
$1.8M current → $1.4M Flex annual. $350K migration.
Our Health Assessment delivers a board-ready migration business case in 2 weeks — including current-state audit, target-state model, and a prioritized 90-day plan.