A Business Case Justification can be the difference between your customer’s project going ahead, or stalling.
Sometimes, customers need additional support in creating a business case for a project in order to get the go ahead.
This business case can be used to convince other customer internal stakeholders that the project makes good business sense.
Why build a Business Case?
When putting together a proposal for a customer, you will often need to create a business case justification to show how your new solution will deliver savings and/or business outcomes for your customers. It’s also good to complete a business case to remind yourself of some of the key information you should ask from your customers in order to accurately align your solution and create a compelling business justification.
Why this matters
Customers want to understand the impact of your solution on their business. Demonstrating a clear return on investment from your solution purchase, or clearly highlighting tangible business outcomes as a result of their new purchase will aid your customer in making a decision, and provide support for your customer to take this business case to other stakeholders within their organisation.
Sections of your Business Case: Executive Summary
Summarize your customer’s current business situation and how your solution will help them. This should just be a short overview to remind the customer of the key challenges that your solution will help with and provide a simple summary of your solution.
Sections of your Business Case: Costs
Your business case should include the customer’s current costs for their existing solution which your product or service will replace. This enables you to work out what the projected cost savings would be to your customer and also the return on investment (ROI) for your solution. It’s useful to look at the wider, softer costs – such as staff time managing the current solution, cost to the business of using older products, and inefficiencies.
Sections of your Business Case: Risk of not acting
Sometimes the hardest challenge to overcome is convincing your customer to move from their current solution to something new. In your business case, highlight the risks and impact involved in NOT making a decision: what will the ongoing costs be? What are the risks to the ongoing operations with their current solution? What opportunities could they miss out on?
Summary
Gathering information about your customers’ current business situation and existing solution costs helps you to create a compelling business case that is based on facts and accurate costings in order to support your customer making a decision.
Business Case Justification Template
Download a PDF template of the Business Case Justification Template to build your own business case.
