COT MANAGEMENT TRAINING INSTITUTE

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Building Accurate Credible Compelling
Business Cases
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Justifying Your Investment Some Best Practices
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Presentation Agenda

• Introduction and Methodology
• Initial Approach
• Quantifying Your Investment
• Common Pitfalls
• Presenting the Business Case
• Conclusion

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Justifying Investment

• Best Practices in justifying the investment
• Building a compelling business case behind the
  investment
• Clearly defining the goals and benefits
• Think of the investment not as an (department)
  e.g. I.T investment but as a Business
  investment
• Grow Sales
• Control Costs
• Manage Assets

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Justifying the Investment

• Components of a Strong Business Case
• Identify Business Drivers
• Like.. Reduce support call handling by X by
  pushing relevant support information to the web
  site
• Define the duration and cost
• A timeline for reaching project goals
• Identify the project risks
• A plan to overcome potential challenges
• Provide Success Criteria or Metrics
• How do we measure our goal of reducing call
  handling?

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Justifying the Investment

• Components of a Strong Business Case
• Build the team
• Work closely with Business teams
• Build a collaborative environment
• Include different levels of the organization to
  achieve buy in

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Types of Business Cases

• Value Generating Strategic
• Examples
• System Implementations
• Process Efficiency Initiatives
• Consolidation/Centralization (organization,
  systems, etc.)
• Sustainment Cost of Doing Business (CDB)
• Examples
• IT/System Enhancements
• Security
• Compliance
• Documentation Storage Retrieval
• Versioning/Tracking/Reporting

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Hard Benefits
Business cases will vary by application and are
usually classified as either hard or soft
benefits

• a

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Soft Benefits
Soft benefits are difficult to quantify but are
often as important as hard benefits

• q

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Understanding The Enterprise Organization
Do not try to solve a business problem with a
technical solution without understanding your
overall strategy
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Quantifying Your Investment Be Realistic

• Revenue Opportunities Difficult to Justify
• Resource Time Often Repurposed
• Other Initiatives with Common Projected Benefits
• Cost Savings - Easier to Quantify
• Known Process Time/Volume/Cost
• Hard Dollars /Contractor Salaries)
• Maintaining disparate systems
• Minimizing point solutions
• Common Pitfalls
• Underestimating the Project Investment
• Internal Resources, Professional Services,
  Training, Testing, System Integration
• On Average Projects are183 Over Budget
• Unrealistic Roadmap Analyze, Understand
  Strategy, Build ROI, Prioritize Appropriately
• Overstating Process Efficiencies, Cost Savings,
  Revenue Growth Projections
• Not Knowing Interdependencies with Other Projects
• Not Accounting For Ramp Up, Learning Adoption

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Presenting The Business Case

• Current State Analysis
• Problem
• What Youre Solving For
• The Solution
• Recommendation
• Value of Investment - Benefits
• Future State
• Time Sensitive Why Now?
• Financials
• Business Case Summary
• Sensitivity Analysis
• Implementation Approach Next Steps
• Appendix
• Business Case Details
• Vendor Information
• Research

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Setting The Project Up For Success

• .

Anchor Adoption
Why Implementations Fail
Pillars of Success
Execution
Leverage Governance Processes
Governance
Build a framework for tomorrow (Holistic)
Roadmap
Lacking a vision
Understand Current State
Get a committed executive sponsor
Not creating a powerful enough guiding coalition
Foundation
Not establishing a great enough sense of urgency
Create a solid business case
Why Transformations Fail, John P. Kotter,
Harvard Business Review,
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Execution The Business Case

• 1

Impacts the Business Case
Map Future State Process
Project Budget Actuals
Execution
Change in Strategy
Requirements Not Met
Measure Efficiencies
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Conclusion Apply The Solution To Your Business
Processes

• Understand The Organization The Strategy
• Conduct Stakeholder Interviews
• Document The Current State
• Analyze The Results
• Quantify Your Investment
• Present The Business Case
• Set The Project Up For Success

A business case is unique to an individual
company in addition to each implementation,
therefore associated costs / savings / benefits
will be unique as well
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Success Equation

• Start with
• A recognized quantifiable strategic problem or
  opportunity
• Alternative Analysis
• Compelling Economics
• Credible Pre-sold Supporters
• Identified Funding Source
• All in a clear, concise, convincing case
• An Approved Project!

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The end

• No questions.! then,
• Thank you for your attention