The Hidden Costs of Employee Offboarding

A Strategic Brief for Nets A/S

The Unseen Threat: A Quantifiable Risk

Inefficient employee offboarding is more than an administrative task; it's a significant financial drain and a critical security vulnerability. For Nets, this represents a substantial, yet addressable, annual cost.

Estimated Annual Cost of Inaction at Nets A/S

€771,000

This figure doesn't include potential GDPR fines, which could exceed €50 million.

Anatomy of a Failure: Dissecting the Annual Cost

This €771,000 loss is not theoretical. It's the sum of tangible, recurring costs that directly impact Nets' bottom line. Understanding the sources of this financial leakage is the first step toward reclaiming that value.

Lost Asset Recovery

~€450,000

The single largest cost, driven by unreturned laptops and the associated data breach response expenses.

Administrative Productivity Loss

~€180,000

Valuable HR and IT staff hours consumed by manual, repetitive offboarding tasks.

Wasted SaaS Licenses

~€66,000

Ongoing payments for software licenses that are not revoked promptly after an employee's departure.

Risk-Adjusted Insider Breach Cost

~€75,000

A conservative estimate of the financial impact from a potential malicious act by a former employee.

Visualizing the contribution of each cost center to the total annual loss.

The Critical Security Gap: Your Widest Attack Surface

The most dangerous risk is the "access hangover"—the period where former employees retain access to corporate systems. This is not a rare oversight; it's a systemic problem that creates an open door for data theft and sabotage.

Lingering Access is a Ticking Clock

76% of IT leaders view employee offboarding as a significant security threat.

50% of ex-employee accounts remain active for more than a day after departure.

20% of these accounts stay active for over a month, leaving a massive window of vulnerability.

Closing the Gap with Secure Transition Management

Thepia's solution addresses the "post-termination black hole" by enabling immediate credential revocation while maintaining a secure, external communication channel. This transforms a chaotic, high-risk process into a controlled, auditable, and secure workflow.

The Old Way: High-Risk & Manual

Departure Day

Employee leaves. Manual process begins.

⚠️ Access Hangover

Corporate access remains active for days or weeks. High risk of data theft.

⚠️ Manual Follow-up

Insecure communication via personal email for asset return. No audit trail.

⚠️ Asset Loss

Laptops, phones, and other assets are often never recovered, leading to massive costs.

The Thepia Way: Secure & Automated

Departure Day

Thepia workflow is initiated.

✅ Immediate Access Revocation

All internal corporate access is terminated instantly, closing the security gap.

✅ Secure External Portal

Employee logs in with personal email to a secure portal for all remaining tasks.

✅ Automated Asset Recovery

Automated reminders, shipping label generation, and tracking ensure asset return.

A Strategic Investment with Immediate Returns

Thepia's two-phase approach begins with a strategic consulting engagement to blueprint the perfect solution, followed by the app deployment. This investment delivers a quantifiable return of over 3.4x in the first year alone.

The Business Case in Numbers

Total Year 1 Investment

€224,000

Includes the one-time Strategic Blueprint consulting (€126k) and the first year's application subscription (€98k).

Quantifiable Annual Return

€771,000

Direct savings from recovered assets, reclaimed productivity, and mitigated security risks.

A direct comparison of the Year 1 investment versus the quantifiable annual return.