The Business Case
The Fundamentals
What is a business case?
A business case outlines the value proposition of your digital workplace. It contains necessary information about cost and resource requirements, benefits and risks involved, evaluation of issues, recommended solutions and a clear path to return on investment (ROI). It is most helpful in assessing the weight of risk, the cost of mitigating them and the level of management’s risk tolerance.
Why do you need a business case?
A business case is the best tool to help you to articulate your value proposition to key stakeholders including:
- Ensure necessary support in the organization and set clear business objectives.
- Provide secure senior level buy-in, budget, and commitment.
- Outline scope, including resource requirements, timeline, and cost.
- Evaluate options and make recommendations.
- Identify and manage the risk associated with the project.
Building your business case
Building a business case can be a daunting task. It requires planning and a solid framework which appeals to your executive team and/or sponsor. Depending on your organization, it can vary from simple to complex. Generally, you need a business case is required when you need to justify the support of a project that requires resources or expenditures like a digital workplace.
Who should write the business case?
Typically, the project owner will write the business case with support from key stakeholders (e.g. domain experts) such as:
- Executive sponsor
- Finance
- IT
 | Playbook Tip: Five questions your business case should answer When building your business case, you need to answer five simple questions:
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Don't have time to write a business case?
In some cases, you might not have the time or resources to put together a thorough business case for your digital workplace. If you're in a situation where developing a business case simply isn't feasible, we recommend that you build use cases instead.
The Building Blocks
Key building blocks of a business case
Not all business or use cases are the same. Each depends on many different factors such as the type of organization and complexity of the project. We recommend keeping it simple and precise using three supporting documents to articulate your case:
- Executive Presentation
- Business Case
- Financial Model
 | Executive presentationThis is your pitch deck to the executive team. It provides a high-level summary of:
An executive presentation is typically in the format of a PowerPoint presentation. Don't forget to include your notes and it shouldn't be no longer than ten pages. Keep it crisp and precise. |
 | Business case documentThis is your actual business case. It outlines the reason(s) why you are proposing a digital workplace for your organization. Key components of your business case should include:
A business case is typically in the format of a Word document. Include a cover sheet, table of contents and references. |
 | Financial analysisThe goal of your financial analysis is to summarize both the costs and the measures of success of your digital workplace project. It is impossible to measure success without some form of predetermined results. Results can be obtained in a variety of ways like number of logins, engagement levels, time spent on the site, surveys, etc. What matters most is that you determine what success looks like, and how to prove it was achieved. It should provide a summary of all expected costs associated with the project and potential revenue increases and/or cost reductions. Think about creating a sample budget and cost/benefit analysis for your digital workplace initiative. Include costs such as:
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| Playbook Tip: Leverage online financial tools When building your business case, you can use online financial tools wherever possible to showcase the costs vs. value of your digital workplace solution, such as: |