Business Case

A business case captures the reasoning for initiating a project or task. A statement of the costs and anticipated benefits that demonstrates the reason for taking a particular action

A business case usually presents the costs and benefits associated with taking a particular action in order to contribute to the discussion about the topic. It is important to notice that a business case only makes sense when considered in relation to a realistic alternative. For example in 1971 there were 8,302 road accident deaths in the UK, by 1981 the number had dropped to 5,133, that is not a business case. If however you claim that making the wearing of seatbelts compulsory accounted for 70% of this reduction then you can build a business case based on what would have happened with and without this law.

In most cases the business case will contrast the AsIs state with the ToBe one. That is the impact of doing nothing against what will occur if an action is taken. This analysis will often focus on a fixed period in the future, for example what would happen over a three year time period.

In most corporate situations a business case focuses on the financial impact of a decision, contrasting the predicted results for each possible option.

Links to this page

The following pages link to here: AsIs, Building Web Sites, Complexity, Project, ToBe