Short answer
More than your reports show, because the cost hides in places no report is built to catch: work waiting between teams, rework, decisions made twice and senior time spent settling disputes. You can estimate it with figures you already have, like the share of orders that slip, rework rates and how many decisions get escalated. Our free Cost of Unowned Work estimator turns those into a cost range in about ten minutes.
The longer answer
There’s no honest industry-wide number for this. Every company’s cost is different, which is why we use your figures rather than a benchmark.
Four places to look:
- Delay: how long work waits between one department finishing and the next starting.
- Rework: errors that come back because the handoff wasn’t clear.
- Repeat decisions: the same question settled in more than one meeting.
- Escalations: problems that climb to senior leaders because nobody below could settle them.
To get margin back, start with the one handoff where most of the cost sits. Fixing one well usually teaches you how to fix the rest.