Business Case

It's no longer acceptable to justify an investment in IT based on staying competitive or keeping pace with technology advancements. There must be a business case. Unfortunately, there is a lot of confusion about what makes a good business case. There are many different calculations. There are hard and soft benefits to consider. In the case of soft benefits, how do you attach a value/number? Making matters worse is that those building the business case often don't have a financial background. However, the biggest problem is that the business case is usually built by those people who have a stake in the investment. They are naturally looking for ways to justify an expenditure that will be beneficial to them personally.

A typical Business Case project would include the following steps.

Analysis

• Review critical success factors (CSFs) – what an organization must be done well in order to be successful
• Review major problems
• Define and prioritize key requirements
• Prepare Request for Information (RFI) that provides enough information for potential solution providers to quote on the costs
• Issue RFI
• Collate responses to RFI

Business Case

• Estimate approximate Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
• Estimate approximate benefits
• Prepare a business case that includes an Return on Investment (ROI) calculation
• Recommend a plan of action