Business Case Definition
Before initiating a large scale programme of change, it is often important for our clients to clearly set out the business case for the targeted initiative. We have defined a structured methodology to business case definition, specifically tailored to the needs of risk management initiatives.
This involves a transparent assessment of the costs involved in undertaking the initiative and the identification of the benefits to be gained. These can then be used as a means of validating the long term investment required for the programme of work.
Our business case definition methodology incorporates assessment of the following areas:
- What are the commercial/revenue benefits to be gained from the initiative? Over what timeframe will these accrue?
- What will be the impact on risk exposure?
- Will the initiative generate capital reduction benefits?
- What process efficiencies will be gained?
- Will any indirect benefits be received by other areas/departments?
- To what extent is client feedback important/available?
- Are there other intangible benefits?
- What are the estimated project costs across both business and technology teams?
- What is the estimated ongoing Total Cost of Ownership for any technology solutions involved?
A key aspect of our approach to this is utilisation of our suite of Benefit Assessor tools.
Depending on the particular initiative, our business case definition approach will often take place in two steps:
- Initial Business Case Definition: This occurs at the initiation of the project and is a high level statement of estimated costs and benefits. Many organisations find this useful in order to gain initial senior stakeholder buy-in to the initiative and to secure funding for the analysis phase of the project
- Full Business Case Definition: This occurs at the end of analysis phase of the initiative (i.e. following completion of Business and Technology End State Definitions under the InteDelta Delivery Lifecycle). At this point the proposed business and technology definitions are known and full programme costs can be assessed. This then provides the validation of the initiative to enable moving to implementation
An important additional use of the business case definitions (and associated cost/benefits) is to provide a clear benchmark of targeted benefits which can be measured and tracked through the delivery phases of the project.
