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Module: Budget & ROI

Purpose​

This module provides budget and ROI information for stakeholder communications. It includes infrastructure costs, engineering costs, expected returns, and ROI calculations.

Use in​

  • CEO communication (high-level budget overview)
  • CTO communication (build vs. buy cost comparison)
  • CIO communication (IT resource requirements)
  • Budget approval requests

Budget Request​

Infrastructure Costs (Monthly)​

ComponentCostNotes
S3 Storage~$1.15Bronze/Silver/Gold/Quarantine (lifecycle policies reduce long-term cost)
Glue Compute~$26.40Pay-per-run (serverless, Spark Job), scales with data volume
Athena Queries~$0.25Pay-per-TB-scanned (partitioning minimizes scans)
Step Functions~$0.01Orchestration (daily runs)
CloudWatchFree tierMonitoring + logs (within free tier limits)
Total Monthly~$27.81/monthFor 1.5M transactions/month, scales with usage

Cost Breakdown Visualization​

Monthly AWS Costs Breakdown:

Data Quality Distribution (1M Transactions Example):

Engineering Costs​

  • Build Phase: 2 FTE × 3 months = [To be calculated based on team rates] (one-time)
  • Ongoing Operations: 0.5 FTE total (0.2 FTE Data Engineer + 0.1 FTE DevOps + 0.1 FTE Infrastructure + 0.1 FTE Operations) = [To be calculated based on team rates]/year

Total Cost of Ownership (Year 1)​

  • Infrastructure: $334/year ($27.81/month × 12 months)
  • Engineering (build): [To be calculated: 2 FTE × 3 months] (one-time, 3 months)
  • Operations: [To be calculated: 0.5 FTE × 12 months] (0.2 FTE Data Engineer + 0.1 FTE DevOps + 0.1 FTE Infrastructure + 0.1 FTE Operations)
  • Total Year 1: [Infrastructure + Engineering + Operations]

Note: Engineering and operations costs depend on team salary rates. Infrastructure costs are fixed at ~$334/year for current scale (1.5M transactions/month).

Note​

Cost Scaling: Infrastructure costs scale with data volume. Current estimate (~$27.81/month) is for 1.5M transactions/month. For 10x growth (15M transactions/month), costs would increase proportionally but remain cost-effective due to serverless architecture.

Engineering Costs: Build phase requires 2 FTE Data Engineers for 3 months. Ongoing operations require 0.5 FTE total across Data Platform and IT teams.

Expected Returns​

Risk Reduction​

  • Compliance Risk: Eliminates audit findings (estimated value depends on regulatory context and penalty structure)
  • Data Quality Risk: Automated validation prevents incorrect reporting
  • Operational Risk: Immutable audit trail ensures regulatory compliance

Time Savings​

  • Analyst Time: 40 hours/month saved on manual processing → [To be calculated: 40 hrs/month × analyst hourly rate × 12 months]/year value
  • Reporting Speed: Same-day vs. 2-3 days → Faster decision making

Business Value​

  • Decision Quality: Faster, more accurate reporting → better business decisions
  • Scalability: Platform supports 10x data growth without proportional cost increase
  • Innovation Foundation: Enables future ML/AI use cases

ROI Calculation​

ROI Formula: (Total Year 1 Returns - Total Year 1 Investment) / Total Year 1 Investment × 100%

Year 1 Investment​

  • Infrastructure: ~$334/year
  • Engineering (build): [2 FTE × 3 months]
  • Operations: [0.5 FTE × 12 months]
  • Total Year 1 Investment: [Sum of above]

Year 1 Returns​

  • Risk reduction: [Estimated value of avoided compliance penalties]
  • Time savings: [40 hrs/month × analyst hourly rate × 12 months]
  • Total Year 1 Value: [Sum of above]

ROI​

ROI = ([Total Year 1 Value] - [Total Year 1 Investment]) / [Total Year 1 Investment] × 100%

Note: ROI calculation requires specific team salary rates and business context (regulatory penalty estimates, analyst hourly rates). Infrastructure ROI is positive due to low monthly costs (~$27.81/month) and high value from automation and compliance.

Cost Optimization​

  • S3 Lifecycle Policies: Move old data to Infrequent Access (reduces storage cost)
  • Partition Pruning: Reduces Athena scan costs by 95%+
  • Serverless Architecture: No idle costs (pay-per-use)
  • Cost Monitoring: CloudWatch cost alerts prevent overruns

Last Updated​

January 2026

Owner​

Data Platform Team

Communication Modules​

Task Documentation​

Technical Documentation​

© 2026 Stephen Adei•CC BY 4.0