Organisations undertake substantial capital investment or change programmes in the course of their activity. Traditional business cases for these investments are often qualitative with minimal assessment of financial benefits to justify the investment.
If the actual results of the investments were known or anticipated at the outset, it is likely that many projects would not be approved.
Organisations are looking to strengthen the development and review of the business cases to ensure resources are allocated only to projects that demonstrably maximise return and create value.
Prior to the creation of a business case, there is the need to justify and validate ideas against corporate objectives. It is common in organisations for ideas to be discarded before they have been thought out or, at the other end of the spectrum, taken to a full business case stage and then discarded.
The existence of an initial set of control gates (see below) and a process to enable multiple ideas to be considered together and validated against objectives, enables the right effort to be focussed where it matters.
Having justified the need to achieve a set of defined outcomes, a clear and concise business case is critical to ensuring those outcomes are achieved. The business case provides a clear point of reference throughout the lifecycle as to the original purpose, plan, costs, projected outcomes and benefits.
Additionally the business case is used to:
Throughout this process we help clients identify, anticipate and proactively manage programme risk. This assessment includes:
Our work helps clients identify viable projects, construct and develop robust business cases, execute projects and create risk management plans for internal submission.