Principe De Conception D'une étude De Cas

Five Ways to Build a Stronger Business Case and ROI

1. Bring in the stakeholders

Paul brought important stakeholders into the case building project at it’ s start by creating a case building advisory group. This group brought cross-functional, cross-organizational input into the case. With that came the authority and credibility that would have been unachievable if Paul and his staff built the case entirely on their own.

Immediately after the seminar, Paul recruited senior managers in charge of HR, Engineering, Manufacturing, and Marketing—all stakeholders who would be impacted by his proposal. He also got a senior financial manager, a regional sales manager and a member of the CEO's Corporate Strategy team to participate.

They met three times during the case building project to review case design and make sure that projected cost and benefit impacts in their own areas were done credibly. As hoped, advisory group members, having contributed to business case design, developed a "sense of ownership" for the case. It was their case, not just Paul's case.

2. Bring them what they are looking for

Company management had recently begun looking at proposals of all kinds—including product proposals—as potential investments competing for funding. The company's financial officers, in particular, wanted to see a projected internal rate of return (IRR) of 25% or more for any proposal of any kind, before turning thumbs up.

3. Compare the alternatives

The terms "increase," "improve," and "reduce" are all relative terms. They are expressed relative to some baseline. That meant that Paul's business case had to include a "business as usual" scenario, as well as the proposal scenario, projecting business results into the future. Board members will want to know how they'll stand on each objective if the proposal is not implemented, in order to decide with confidence whether or not the proposal is worth the investment.

4. Reduce risk, measure uncertainty

Paul's case developed specific projections for each measure the Board wanted, but everyone knew that the actual results would not be exactly as predicted. They might be a little less or a little more. Or, results might be a lot less or a lot more. The case predicts the future, after all, and predicting the future always involves some level of uncertainty.

Paul made sure that a thorough risk and sensitivity analysis was part of the case building! project plan. Case builders cannot eliminate uncertainty from future projections, but they can minimize risk and measure what is left.

5. Deliver practical guidance

In order for the case to instil confidence in decision makers, it has to deliver more than predicted outcomes. A strong business case also delivers practical guidance with specific, concrete steps management can take to apply financial tactics during the life of the investment: minimize costs, increase gains, and bring the gains forward in time.

Paul and his team brought their business case report to a close with specific actions management could take to maximize the investment. They focused especially on critical success

...