Reduce Time to Consensus With an Accelerated Business Case

Expand on the financial model to give your initiative momentum.

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Your Challenge

Enterprise application initiatives are complex, expensive, and require a significant amount of planning before initiation.
A financial business case is sometimes used to justify these initiatives.
Once the business case (and benefits therein) are approved, the case is forgotten, eliminating a critical check and balance of benefit realization.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

1. Frame the conversation.

Understand the audience and forum for the business case to best frame the conversation.

2. Time-box the process of building the case.

More time should be spent on performing the action rather than building the case.

3. The business case is a living document.

The business case creates the basis for review of the realization of the proposed business benefits once the procurement is complete.

Impact and Result

Understand the drivers for decision making in your organization, and the way initiatives are evaluated.
Compile a compelling business case that provides decision makers with sufficient information to make decisions confidently.
Evaluate proposed enterprise application initiatives “apples-to-apples” using a standardized and repeatable methodology.
Provide a mechanism for tracking initiative performance during and after implementation.

Contributors

Dean Potash, Senior Director, Enterprise Infrastructure, PotashCorp
Maha Nassir, Business Systems Analyst, Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry
Scott Wagner, Director, Global Infrastructure & Security, SAF-HOLLAND
6 anonymous contributors

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See how all the steps you need to take come together, with tools and advice to help with each task on your list.

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Get to Action

Start here – read the Executive Brief

Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should build a business case for enterprise application investments, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand how we can support you in completing this project.

Gather the required information

Complete the necessary preceding tasks to building the business case. Rationalize the initiative under consideration, determine the organizational decision flow following a stakeholder assessment, and conduct market research to understand the options.
Conduct the business case analysis

Conduct a thorough assessment of the initiative in question. Define the alternatives under consideration, identify tangible and intangible benefits for each, aggregate the costs, and highlight any risks.
- Reduce Time to Consensus With an Accelerated Business Case – Phase 2: Conduct the Business Case Analysis
Make the case

Finalize the recommendation based on the analysis and create a business case presentation to frame the conversation for key stakeholders.

Guided Implementation

This guided implementation is an eleven call advisory process.

Guided Implementation #1 - Gather the required information

Call #1: Scope the decision making process and proposed initiative.
Call #2: Identify the main stakeholders, their role, and context.
Call #3: Determine what information to collect and the sources to find it.

Guided Implementation #2 - Conduct the business case analysis

Call #1: Ideate and choose the alternatives to analyze.
Call #2: Identify tangible and intangible benefits.
Call #3: Identify one-time and ongoing costs.
Call #4: Create a financial business model.
Call #5: Build performance measures into the case.

Guided Implementation #3 - Make the case

Call #1: Choose the recommendation.
Call #2: Compile detailed and summary presentations.
Call #3: Close out and monitor the business case.

Schedule Your First Call

Onsite Workshop

The Purpose

Complete the necessary preceding tasks to building a strong business case.

Key Benefits Achieved

Alignment with business objectives.
Stakeholder buy-in.

Activities:		Outputs:
1.1	Map the decision flow in your organization.	Decision traceability
1.2	Define the proposed initiative.	Initiative summary
1.3	Define the problem/opportunity statement.	Problem/opportunity statement
1.4	Clarify goals and objectives expected from the initiative.	Business objectives

The Purpose

Put together the key elements of the business case including alternatives, benefits, and costs.

Key Benefits Achieved

Rationalize the business case.

Activities:		Outputs:
2.1	Design viable alternatives.	Shortlisted alternatives
2.2	Identify the tangible and intangible benefits.	Benefits tracking model
2.3	Assess current and future costs.	Total cost of ownership
2.4	Create the financial business case model.	Impact analysis

The Purpose

Determine more integral factors in the business case such as ramp-up time for benefits realization as well as risk assessment.

Key Benefits Achieved

Complete a comprehensive case.

Activities:		Outputs:
3.1	Determine ramp-up times for costs and benefits.	Benefits realization schedule
3.2	Identify performance measures and tracking.	Performance tracking framework
3.3	Assess initiative risk.	Risk register

The Purpose

Finalize the recommendation and formulate the business case summary and presentation.

Key Benefits Achieved

Prepare the business case presentation.

Activities:		Outputs:
4.1	Choose the alternative to be recommended.	Final recommendation
4.2	Create the detailed and summary business case presentations.	Business case presentation
4.3	Present and incorporate feedback.	Final sign-off
4.4	Monitor and close out.