Making A Business Case: Being Commercial & Strategic

Ask most CFO’s about employees who put forward business cases and they will tell you three things:

• It can just come down to timing; which business case landed first and when the funds were available.
• Too often business cases are just ‘wish-lists’ without the proper market analysis and substance behind them.
• Just because the business case aligns to strategy, doesn’t mean it will get up. In some ways, everything aligns to the strategy, so it then becomes a matter of priority: why is this more important than that?

Planning Your Pitch

When making a business case it is critical to think through all the elements in a commercial and strategic way. Below we have provided a set of questions that can help one prepare for pitching your business case.

Audience

Who is the audience for your pitch? What do they care about?

What are their biggest challenges?

Pitch Objective

What is your main objective of this pitch?

What are the first next steps you want your audience to take to get them closer to this main objective?

Pain Points

What is the problem you’re trying to solve? What is the impact of this problem?

What evidence do you have to support the human and/or economic pain points? What facts, statistics, observations, reports or expert opinions do you have that are relevant, accurate and credible?

The Idea

What will your idea do for your audience? How easy will it be to adopt? How compatible is it with the current way?

How does your idea connect to the most important and current priorities in your organisations strategy?

Benefits

How will it benefit your audience and directly address their pain points?

How is it better than the current way? What sets your idea aside from other alternatives?

ROI

What are the direct and indirect costs for your audience to implement your idea?

What are the gains, both financial and human, if your idea is implemented? Can your idea self-fund for your organisation within a short period of time?

Risks

What are the potential risks with your idea? Which risks are most likely to negatively impact your idea and what are your plans to mitigate against these risks?

What are the likely counterarguments from your audience and what’s your response to these, backed up by evidence if required?

Why Now?

Why is it important for your audience to show urgency and act now? What would happen if they procrastinate for too long on the decision?

What are the cost implications if your audience does nothing and continues with the current way?