Where did you read that they didn't see any ROI? I find that highly unlikely.

They don't hire filing clerks any more. They don't have rooms full of people doing manual computation, of typing out monthly bills to mail to customers. That's a huge workforce reduction.

The US Steel Gary works went from about 30,000 workers down to about 6000 thanks to process automation and other improvements in the early 1960s.

It was a huge payoff for those who automated.