I found this helpful utility at http://www.passmark.com/products/apptimer.htm through my internet travels.
AppTimer is a (from their website) "AppTimer will run an executable a number of times and time how long it takes for the application to reach a state ... before exiting the application. After each run of the application AppTimer will attempt to close the application in an automated fashion while logging the startup time measurements to a log file."
The key point to understand from this software is that AppTimer can measure time how long it takes for your application to reach the state where the user input is being accepted before exiting the application. For example if you use this to launch word and open a document, Word's application launch may be recorded, as well as opening the document.
The first plus that caught my eye was that this is a portable app, no installation required. I'm always looking for another utility for my troubleshooting USB drive.
I will run a test to see how I can use it in the field.
You should play with this utility on your computer to get the hang of it before going across a network.
Enjoy