There are quite a few CIO/CTO wants to know the ROI (Return Of Investment) for Microservice application/product development. Some of them are trying to measure that by revenue vs cost. The next import question for them is, how long it takes to realize the ROI. All these valid concerns that CIO/CTO should be definitely worried about it. I agree the business impact is primary and that should end with increased revenue numbers due to the change but that should not start with numbers.

Any actions that make the customer and the stakeholders happy is an impactful action and that leads to better business outcomes. Some of the actions could be internal and inside to the company and some could be external. MSA (MicroService Architecture) creates instantaneous impact. The significance will be realized in every step of the software development life cycle (SDLC). 

The best way to measure the ROI of microservice implementation should include the following factors, 

1) Embracing the polyglot technology landscape and use them on merit basis

2) Agile Delivery – Fastest feature delivery in a possible shortest span of time 

3) Move your features to production with confidence. The MSA applications are nimble in nature and that would help to test the unit thoroughly.

4) Scale the application based on usage metrics. Need not to scale the monster monolith and spend huge amounts of money on infrastructure and burn a lot of human calories. 

5) When the Product/Feature/Service turns buggy, alienate and address it in ease

6) Better resilience as all the features are independent service. 

As you would have noticed from the above points, the microservice’s ROI starts from day one of microservice implementation. All the above features of MSA confirms continuous delivery in an agile fashion. The sooner the product reaches, the customer receives the early feedback. The businesses are after all waiting for the right feedback to act upon. The short and close feedback cycle is the gift to any product company. MSA helps you to achieve that.