How to Conduct a Business Case Analysis

Have you ever advocated for a new tool, project, or initiative, only to be told you need to "make a business case?" Except no one ever tells you what a convincing business case looks like. You write a high-level summary and hope for the best, but it feels like an exercise in futility. What no one tells you: Business cases that get approved convert ideas into metrics. Here's what a great business case includes: (1) Clear statement of the problem you need to solve, with metrics attached. Most people stick to high-level descriptions ("will help us onboard customers faster!"), but this rarely convinces anyone. Great business cases make explicit, direct reference to the organization's ability to meet its board-level goals. You want to make statements like, "Today, it takes 4 weeks to onboard a new customer. We need to get this down to 2 weeks in order to hit our target of onboarding 500 new customers this year." In other words, put your request in direct context of the goals the organization already cares about. (2) Clear explanation of how your proposed solution will help. Use metrics here too. You want to include stuff like, "Today, the manual steps involved in configuring a new account take 10 hours of someone's time. By using Fancy New Tool to automate this part of the process, we will reduce this to 30 minutes." What you assert here becomes an operational commitment if your business case is approved, so make sure you believe it. (3) Comparison of the costs of adopting your proposal vs. the costs of doing nothing. This is where most business cases fall down, even if they get (1) and (2) correct. This is stuff like, "An annual subscription to Fancy New Tool costs $80,000. Adopting Fancy New Tool will save us 9.5 hours of time across all 500 new accounts. This will save us $237,500 in labor costs. Furthermore, if we do not automate this process, we project that we will only be able to onboard 400 new accounts next year, which would amount to $15M in lost revenue opportunity." The difference between business cases that get approved and those that do not usually comes down to math. ** I'm Kieran Snyder, an AI exec, former CEO, and data storyteller who publishes new data about AI, management, and work every single week at nerd processor. Give me a follow if you like this stuff!

Most “business cases” are way too shallow to be a business case. They’re more like brochures. Glossing over an account's story with templated marketing speak instead. Here's a 3x3 checklist (3 goals across 3 topics) to help you go do deeper. To make the shift from Brochure → Business Case. *Today’s Problem* (1) Reference internal project “codenames” to focus on an exec priority. (2) Play out the problem’s “so what?” a few times to go from a functional → strategic issue. The phrase "which means" will help. (3) Use the customer’s own data to quantify your problem statement. *Tomorrow’s Payoff:* (1) Align the outcome you’ll enable to a specific, exec-level metric. (2) Create a set of believable outcome scenarios the FP&A team signs off on. (3) De-risk those scenarios by linking out to a clear go-live plan. *The Pathway (From Problem → Payoff)* (1) Find a specific date (i.e. "compelling event") to anchor your timeline to a shift in the customer's org. (2) Weave in feedback from multiple buying roles, with known detractors’ critiques added. (3) Frame your “unique differentiators” as must-have requirements that’ll drive the decision. Is going deep on all these points as easy as handing out a brochure? Nope. Definitely not. But it’s worth it. You'll make it that much easier for your champions to sell internally. You can also cut down the time it takes to get to your first draft, and spot your discovery gaps, with Fluint: https://lnkd.in/gE-cZisa

🩸 💦 😢 Have you ever poured your blood, sweat, and tears into a proposal… and gotten crickets from your leadership? You’re not alone. Good ideas fail all the time. Not because they’re wrong, but because the business case wasn’t strong enough. After one of my workshops on building a business case for leadership development, an HR leader pulled me aside. Her team had spent months designing a solid program, but she couldn’t get her leadership team to approve it. When I asked her why she felt her company needed a leadership development program, she said: “I guess because it's the right thing to do.” That right there? A huge red flag 🚩, and likely the very reason her pitch was falling flat. If you want your company’s leadership to invest time, money, and resources into your ideas, you need more than good vibes. You need a compelling business case. Here are 4 steps that work: 1️⃣ Define the problem. No problem = no urgency. What pain does your idea solve, or what opportunity does it capitalize on? 2️⃣ Quantify the cost of doing nothing. Executives speak the language of money. Show them the financial impact of the status quo versus the projected savings or cost avoidance of implementing your idea. 3️⃣ Propose multiple solutions (but recommend one). Frame multiple options that you can support, back them all with data, and then make your case for the best path forward. 4️⃣ Forecast the upside. Demonstrate how your idea will improve results — with $ signs and % symbols included. In short, a business case isn’t a list of nice-to-haves. It’s a story about how solving a specific problem or taking advantage of a specific opportunity will drive business results. 👍 Get that right, and your chances of hearing “yes” go way up. Do you have any additional tips for getting ideas heard and approved by leadership? I'd love to learn from you.

Questions to ask during the first two phases of an enablement project (Intake + Business Case): ----- INTAKE 1) Who is the target audience(s) 2) What job requirement and/or topic is to be addressed? 3) Is this a new job requirement (did their job or expectations change)? 4) How critical is this requirement/topic to individual and organizational performance (are the consequences severe or have low effect/can be repaired)? 5) How difficult is this requirement? Is practice, coaching, and experience required? 6) Among the target audience, what percentage is not performing to standard? 7) Is memorization required? Or can guides be used to refer to and fully support performance? 8) How frequently is this performed on the job (randomly, monthly, weekly, daily)? 9) What attempts to address this requirement/topic have been deployed in the past? Why did they fail? 10) What exists today to enable this requirement/topic? Why is it falling short? 11) Why is this being requested now? 12) What is being requested? Are there expectations as to what will be developed and deployed? 13) When does this request need to be completed? Why is that time frame important? ----- BUSINESS CASE 1) What problem are we solving? 2) How is this impacting the business? 3) How do we objectively know this is impacting the business (and if we don’t know, how can we test it)? 4) How will the business benefit (and how is this measured)? 5) What will indicate we’re tracking for success (and how is this measured)? 6) Are the indicators in the audience’s direct control? 7) What outputs/deliverables does the audience need to produce? 8) When should these measures be improved and what is our target range for improvement? ----- From there, you'll need to make a decision: - DELETE: it doesn't make business sense to pursue - DEFER: put on hold until other important dependencies take place - DELEGATE: it's not in the scope of enablement responsibilities - DO: it makes business sense to allocate resources #salesenablement

Want to get your initiatives approved by executive leaders? Then create a compelling business case. Here's how... Building a good business case is key to any successful initiative. It not only helps justify the investment in new technology or transformation effort -  it's also an important skill for any leader to master when advocating for change and to think more strategically. Below are the key components of a well-crafted business case: 1. Executive Summary - A high-level summary of the key details and recommendations of the business case. This comes at the beginning but is typically written last. 2. Problem to Solve /Opportunity - The "Why" behind the proposal. 3. Goals & Objectives - What are the specific business goals and measurable objectives you want to achieve with this proposal or initiative? 4. Options & Alternatives - What other options or alternative solutions have been considered? Summarize pros/cons of each. Recommend one and justify why. 5. Implementation Plan - Detail the key implementation milestones, timeframe, roles and responsibilities across teams. 6. Financial Analysis - Provide projected financial costs v benefits analysis. Include ROI, NPV etc. 7. Risk Assessment - Outline and assess any risks - technical, market etc - and plans to mitigate them. 8. KPIs & Metrics - Define the key performance metrics & indicators to track to deem if successful. 9. Conclusions - Sum up the key components and make final recommendations aligned to business needs/objectives. P.S.: If you found this insightful, give it a thumbs up and follow me as I share my insights and learnings around the topics of business agility, leadership, and transformation management. 😎  #leadership #transformationmanagement