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Opportunity value is the potential benefit lost or gained as a result of a harmful action. Opportunity value can include the growth or loss of your customer base, business opportunities, profits, and so on. It can also include strategic positioning of your organization and its business-to-business relationships, the timing of taking a company public, and the strength of your corporate culture.

Unless there are already detailed plans with financial projections, it is sometimes hard to assign a specific monetary value to an opportunity value loss. For example, when contracts are lost internally unless they were large contracts that were calculated into financial projections, it is unlikely that those losses are tracked. If those losses could be quantified financially, they would likely be considered a loss of monetary value as well as opportunity value. There generally is a monetary value that relates to opportunity value, and it can't always be tracked.

We have worked incidents where former employees stole proposals and other corporate information to use for the benefit of their new employers. In some cases, a contract was lost. It is hard to attribute the lost contract to the specific theft, as these situations can be complex and many factors apply. Besides the lost profit from not having the contract, it reduces the likelihood of future work with the client. It might also reduce the money available for future marketing efforts, which can impact future income from other sources.

Some opportunity values can be identified and even quantified, particularly if they align with your organization's goals. For example, if your organization wants to raise its profile in the public's general awareness, being positively reported on in major media has opportunity value. Tracking the number of hits on social media can reveal some level of engagement with people as well.

Opportunity value comes in many forms, and it is usually difficult to calculate. However, it is something to consider in the justification of your efforts. And in the situations when you actually can attach metrics to the opportunity value, you can turn it into something more recognizably quantifiable. Any outage or disruption reveals opportunities for improvement in operations.