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Program Management

A Business Case Analysis (BCA) is a document that provides a best-value analysis that considers not only cost but other quantifiable and non-quantifiable factors supporting an investment decision. A BCA should aid the decision maker in making an informed product support strategy decision. It should be tailored to inform the Program Manager of the costs, benefits, and risk implications of the strategic alternatives being considered. It should reflect the appropriate level of analysis needed to provide a fair assessment of the proposed alternatives. This analysis can include but is not limited to performance, producibility, reliability, maintainability, and supportability enhancements.

Definition: A Business Case Analysis (BCA) is a s a structured methodology and document that aids decision-making by identifying and comparing alternatives by examining the mission and business impacts (both financial and non-financial), risks, and sensitivities. It is a Program Management tool used to evaluate potential business decisions for best-value determinations.

Purpose of a Business Case Analysis (BCA)

The purpose of a BCA is to provide decision-makers with the appropriate information to assess whether or not to make a decision. A BCA is a valuable tool that assists in refining the myriad of decisions to determine the best value strategy.  It follows an iterative process, conducted and updated as needed throughout the life cycle as program plans evolve and react to changes in the business and mission environment.

Why Use a Business Case Analysis (BCA)

A BCA is a powerful tool for two crucial reasons. The first is that the person making the report has to think about all the costs, risks, and benefits of making a choice. When making a choice, it’s easy to only think about what you want to happen instead of looking at every possible event. When people are pushed to think about the worst possible outcomes, they are likelier to make the right choice. The second reason to use business case analysis is that it makes it easy for a subject-matter expert to give useful information to stakeholders and put it in context. Without a full report from the expert, stakeholders might not realize how vital some costs, risks, or rewards are.

Business Case Analysis (BCA) Use

A Business Case Analysis is used for the following:

  • Is used in the initial decision to invest in a project.
  • Guides the decision to select among alternative approaches.
  • Is used to validate any proposed scope, schedule, or budget changes during the course of the project.
  • Should also be used to identify the various budget accounts and amounts affected by the various product support strategies.
  • Should be a living document ‘ as project or organization changes occur they should be reflected in updates to the business case.
  • Should be used to validate that planned benefits are realized at the completion of the project.
  • Makes the team consider all of the costs, risks, and benefits of making a decision

Business Case Analysis (BCA) Report Content

As a minimum, a BCA should include:

  • Executive Summary: An overview of the BCA
  • Introduction: An introduction that defines what the case is about (the subject) and why (its purpose) it is necessary. The introduction presents the objectives addressed by the subject of the case.
  • Methods and Assumptions: state the analysis methods and rationale that fixes the boundaries of the case (whose costs and benefits are examined over what time period). This section outlines the rules for deciding what belongs in the case and what does not, along with the important assumptions.
  • Impacts: The business impacts are the financial and non-financial business impacts expected in one or more scenarios.
  • Risk assessment: show how results depend on important assumptions (‘what if’) and the likelihood for other results to surface.
  • Conclusions and Recommendations: specific actions based on business objectives and the analysis results.

Business Case Analysis (BCA) References

Guide: dod product support business case analysis (bca) guidebook – 28 feb 2014.

  • Template: DoD Business Case Analysis

Performance-Based Logistics (PBL) BCA

DoD has promulgated the Guiding Principles for conducting a Performance-Based Logistics (PBL) BCA in USD(AT&L) Memorandum, Performance-Based Logistics (PBL) Business Case Analysis (BCA), 23 January 2004. OSD has issued guidance emphasizing the use of the Business Case Analysis as a fundamental tool to support PBL support strategic decisions.

Difference Between a Business Case and Business Case Analysis

They are the same regarding results, but a business case normally refers to the report, and business case analysis refers to the analysis.

AcqNotes Tutorial

Lessons Learned in Developing a Business Case Analysis (BCA)

As a program manager who needs to make a business case study for top management, there are a few essential things to remember. Here are some of the most important lessons:

  • Know the Goals: Before you start the business case analysis, make sure you understand the company’s strategic goals and the proposed project’s specific goals. This will help you ensure your analysis aligns with the results you want and show senior leadership the possible value.
  • Get people involved early: Include key partners from the start of the process to get their feedback and ensure their points of view are considered. Engaging partners early on build support and helps find key success factors, possible risks, and other important factors that should be analyzed.
  • Get enough information: Do a lot of studies and gather accurate information to back up your analysis. This includes financial data, market studies, customer feedback, and other useful information. Ensuring your data is correct and reliable will give your business case more weight.
  • Clearly define assumptions: If you made any assumptions during the research, say so and explain them. Assumptions are a key part of making predictions and figuring out costs and rewards. Being open about your assumptions helps the people in charge understand your analysis and decide if it is true.
  • List and measure the benefits: List and measure both the visible and invisible benefits of the planned project. Tangible benefits can be measured in terms of money, like how much they save, make, or improve efficiency. Some examples of intangible benefits are happier customers, a better image for the brand, and happier employees. Your business case will be stronger if you show all of the perks.
  • Evaluate risks and ways to deal with them: Find and evaluate any possible risks with the project. Explain how likely risks will happen and how they might affect the company. Also, develop suitable mitigation strategies to show that you are taking a proactive approach to risk management and reduce the likelihood of bad things happening.
  • Think about other options: Look into other solutions or ways of doing things and rate their viability and possible benefits. By comparing different options, senior leaders can make well-informed decisions and ensure that the planned initiative is the most effective and efficient way to meet organizational goals.
  • Communicate clearly and briefly: Give your analysis in a clear, brief, and convincing way. Use visual guides, executive summaries, and other tools to help people understand your findings. Adjust the level of detail to your audience and focus on the key information senior leadership needs to make an informed choice.
  • Be ready for questions: Think about what questions and worries senior leadership might have and be ready to answer them. Understand the business case analysis and the concepts it is based on so you can answer with confidence and knowledge. This shows your knowledge and builds your trustworthiness.
  • Ask for feedback and keep making changes:  After presenting the business case analysis, ask top leadership and other stakeholders for feedback. Learn what they think and what worries them. Use this feedback as a chance to keep getting better, to improve your analysis, and to add useful information to future business cases.

AcqLinks and References:

  • DoD Product Support Business Case Analysis (BCA) Guidebook – 28 Feb 2014

Updated: 7/8/2023

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How to Write a Business Case (Template Included)

ProjectManager

Table of Contents

What is a business case, how to write a business case, business case template, watch our business case training video, key elements of a business case, how projectmanager helps with your business case.

A business case is a project management document that explains how the benefits of a project overweigh its costs and why it should be executed. Business cases are prepared during the project initiation phase and their purpose is to include all the project’s objectives, costs and benefits to convince stakeholders of its value.

A business case is an important project document to prove to your client, customer or stakeholder that the project proposal you’re pitching is a sound investment. Below, we illustrate the steps to writing one that will sway them.

The need for a business case is that it collects the financial appraisal, proposal, strategy and marketing plan in one document and offers a full look at how the project will benefit the organization. Once your business case is approved by the project stakeholders, you can begin the project planning phase.

Projects fail without having a solid business case to rest on, as this project document is the base for the project charter and project plan. But if a project business case is not anchored to reality, and doesn’t address a need that aligns with the larger business objectives of the organization, then it is irrelevant.

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Use this free Business Case Template for Word to manage your projects better.

The research you’ll need to create a strong business case is the why, what, how and who of your project. This must be clearly communicated. The elements of your business case will address the why but in greater detail. Think of the business case as a document that is created during the project initiation phase but will be used as a reference throughout the project life cycle.

Whether you’re starting a new project or mid-way through one, take time to write up a business case to justify the project expenditure by identifying the business benefits your project will deliver and that your stakeholders are most interested in reaping from the work. The following four steps will show you how to write a business case.

Step 1: Identify the Business Problem

Projects aren’t created for projects’ sake. They should always be aligned with business goals . Usually, they’re initiated to solve a specific business problem or create a business opportunity.

You should “Lead with the need.” Your first job is to figure out what that problem or opportunity is, describe it, find out where it comes from and then address the time frame needed to deal with it.

This can be a simple statement but is best articulated with some research into the economic climate and the competitive landscape to justify the timing of the project.

Step 2: Identify the Alternative Solutions

How do you know whether the project you’re undertaking is the best possible solution to the problem defined above? Naturally, prioritizing projects is hard, and the path to success is not paved with unfounded assumptions.

One way to narrow down the focus to make the right solution clear is to follow these six steps (after the relevant research, of course):

  • Note the alternative solutions.
  • For each solution, quantify its benefits.
  • Also, forecast the costs involved in each solution.
  • Then figure out its feasibility .
  • Discern the risks and issues associated with each solution.
  • Finally, document all this in your business case.

Step 3: Recommend a Preferred Solution

You’ll next need to rank the solutions, but before doing that it’s best to set up criteria, maybe have a scoring mechanism such as a decision matrix to help you prioritize the solutions to best choose the right one.

Some methodologies you can apply include:

  • Depending on the solution’s cost and benefit , give it a score of 1-10.
  • Base your score on what’s important to you.
  • Add more complexity to your ranking to cover all bases.

Regardless of your approach, once you’ve added up your numbers, the best solution to your problem will become evident. Again, you’ll want to have this process also documented in your business case.

Step 4: Describe the Implementation Approach

So, you’ve identified your business problem or opportunity and how to reach it, now you have to convince your stakeholders that you’re right and have the best way to implement a process to achieve your goals. That’s why documentation is so important; it offers a practical path to solve the core problem you identified.

Now, it’s not just an exercise to appease senior leadership. Who knows what you might uncover in the research you put into exploring the underlying problem and determining alternative solutions? You might save the organization millions with an alternate solution than the one initially proposed. When you put in the work on a strong business case, you’re able to get your sponsors or organizational leadership on board with you and have a clear vision as to how to ensure the delivery of the business benefits they expect.

Our business case template for Word is the perfect tool to start writing a business case. It has 9 key business case areas you can customize as needed. Download the template for free and follow the steps below to create a great business case for all your projects.

Free Business Case Template for Word

One of the key steps to starting a business case is to have a business case checklist. The following is a detailed outline to follow when developing your business case. You can choose which of these elements are the most relevant to your project stakeholders and add them to our business case template. Then once your business case is approved, start managing your projects with a robust project management software such as ProjectManager.

1. Executive Summary

The executive summary is a short version of each section of your business case. It’s used to give stakeholders a quick overview of your project.

2. Project Definition

This section is meant to provide general information about your projects, such as the business objectives that will be achieved and the project plan outline.

3. Vision, Goals and Objectives

First, you have to figure out what you’re trying to do and what is the problem you want to solve. You’ll need to define your project vision, goals and objectives. This will help you shape your project scope and identify project deliverables.

4. Project Scope

The project scope determines all the tasks and deliverables that will be executed in your project to reach your business objectives.

5. Background Information

Here you can provide a context for your project, explaining the problem that it’s meant to solve, and how it aligns with your organization’s vision and strategic plan.

6. Success Criteria and Stakeholder Requirements

Depending on what kind of project you’re working on, the quality requirements will differ, but they are critical to the project’s success. Collect all of them, figure out what determines if you’ve successfully met them and report on the results .

7. Project Plan

It’s time to create the project plan. Figure out the tasks you’ll have to take to get the project done. You can use a work breakdown structure template  to make sure you are through. Once you have all the tasks collected, estimate how long it will take to complete each one.

Project management software makes creating a project plan significantly easier. ProjectManager can upload your work breakdown structure template and all your tasks are populated in our tool. You can organize them according to your production cycle with our kanban board view, or use our Gantt chart view to create a project schedule.

kanban card moving into next column on the board

8. Project Budget

Your budget is an estimate of everything in your project plan and what it will cost to complete the project over the scheduled time allotted.

9. Project Schedule

Make a timeline for the project by estimating how long it will take to get each task completed. For a more impactful project schedule , use a tool to make a Gantt chart, and print it out. This will provide that extra flourish of data visualization and skill that Excel sheets lack.

10. Project Governance

Project governance refers to all the project management rules and procedures that apply to your project. For example, it defines the roles and responsibilities of the project team members and the framework for decision-making.

11. Communication Plan

Have milestones for check-ins and status updates, as well as determine how stakeholders will stay aware of the progress over the project life cycle.

12. Progress Reports

Have a plan in place to monitor and track your progress during the project to compare planned to actual progress. There are project tracking tools that can help you monitor progress and performance.

Again, using a project management tool improves your ability to see what’s happening in your project. ProjectManager has tracking tools like dashboards and status reports that give you a high-level view and more detail, respectively. Unlike light-weight apps that make you set up a dashboard, ours is embedded in the tool. Better still, our cloud-based software gives you real-time data for more insightful decision-making. Also, get reports on more than just status updates, but timesheets, workload, portfolio status and much more, all with just one click. Then filter the reports and share them with stakeholders to keep them updated.

ProjectManager’s dashboard view, which shows six key metrics on a project

13. Financial Appraisal

This is a very important section of your business case because this is where you explain how the financial benefits outweigh the project costs . Compare the financial costs and benefits of your project. You can do this by doing a sensitivity analysis and a cost-benefit analysis.

14. Market Assessment

Research your market, competitors and industry, to find opportunities and threats

15. Competitor Analysis

Identify direct and indirect competitors and do an assessment of their products, strengths, competitive advantages and their business strategy.

16. SWOT Analysis

A SWOT analysis helps you identify your organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. The strengths and weaknesses are internal, while the opportunities and threats are external.

17. Marketing Strategy

Describe your product, distribution channels, pricing, target customers among other aspects of your marketing plan or strategy.

18. Risk Assessment

There are many risk categories that can impact your project. The first step to mitigating them is to identify and analyze the risks associated with your project activities.

ProjectManager , an award-winning project management software, can collect and assemble all the various data you’ll be collecting, and then easily share it both with your team and project sponsors.

Once you have a spreadsheet with all your tasks listed, you can import it into our software. Then it’s instantly populated into a Gantt chart . Simply set the duration for each of the tasks, add any dependencies, and your project is now spread across a timeline. You can set milestones, but there is so much more you can do.

Gantt chart from ProjectManager

You have a project plan now, and from the online Gantt chart, you can assign team members to tasks. Then they can comment directly on the tasks they’re working on, adding as many documents and images as needed, fostering a collaborative environment. You can track their progress and change task durations as needed by dragging and dropping the start and end dates.

But that’s only a taste of what ProjectManager offers. We have kanban boards that visualize your workflow and a real-time dashboard that tracks six project metrics for the most accurate view of your project possible.

Try ProjectManager and see for yourself with this 30-day free trial .

If you want more business case advice, take a moment to watch Jennifer Bridges, PMP, in this short training video. She explains the steps you have to take in order to write a good business case.

Here’s a screenshot for your reference.

how writing a business case for your project is good business strategy

Transcription:

Today we’re talking about how to write a business case. Well, over the past few years, we’ve seen the market, or maybe organizations, companies or even projects, move away from doing business cases. But, these days, companies, organizations, and those same projects are scrutinizing the investments and they’re really seeking a rate of return.

So now, think of the business case as your opportunity to package your project, your idea, your opportunity, and show what it means and what the benefits are and how other people can benefit.

We want to take a look today to see what’s in the business case and how to write one. I want to be clear that when you look for information on a business case, it’s not a briefcase.

Someone called the other day and they were confused because they were looking for something, and they kept pulling up briefcases. That’s not what we’re talking about today. What we’re talking about are business cases, and they include information about your strategies, about your goals. It is your business proposal. It has your business outline, your business strategy, and even your marketing plan.

Why Do You Need a Business Case?

And so, why is that so important today? Again, companies are seeking not only their project managers but their team members to have a better understanding of business and more of an idea business acumen. So this business case provides the justification for the proposed business change or plan. It outlines the allocation of capital that you may be seeking and the resources required to implement it. Then, it can be an action plan . It may just serve as a unified vision. And then it also provides the decision-makers with different options.

So let’s look more at the steps required to put these business cases together. There are four main steps. One, you want to research your market. Really look at what’s out there, where are the needs, where are the gaps that you can serve? Look at your competition. How are they approaching this, and how can you maybe provide some other alternatives?

You want to compare and finalize different approaches that you can use to go to market. Then you compile that data and you present strategies, your goals and other options to be considered.

And then you literally document it.

So what does the document look like? Well, there are templates out there today. The components vary, but these are the common ones. And then these are what I consider essential. So there’s the executive summary. This is just a summary of your company, what your management team may look like, a summary of your product and service and your market.

The business description gives a little bit more history about your company and the mission statement and really what your company is about and how this product or service fits in.

Then, you outline the details of the product or service that you’re looking to either expand or roll out or implement. You may even include in their patents may be that you have pending or other trademarks.

Then, you want to identify and lay out your marketing strategy. Like, how are you gonna take this to your customers? Are you going to have a brick-and-mortar store? Are you gonna do this online? And, what are your plans to take it to market?

You also want to include detailed information about your competitor analysis. How are they doing things? And, how are you planning on, I guess, beating your competition?

You also want to look at and identify your SWOT. And the SWOT is your strength. What are the strengths that you have in going to market? And where are the weaknesses? Maybe some of your gaps. And further, where are your opportunities and maybe threats that you need to plan for? Then the overview of the operation includes operational information like your production, even human resources, information about the day-to-day operations of your company.

And then, your financial plan includes your profit statement, your profit and loss, any of your financials, any collateral that you may have, and any kind of investments that you may be seeking.

So these are the components of your business case. This is why it’s so important. And if you need a tool that can help you manage and track this process, then sign up for our software now at ProjectManager .

Click here to browse ProjectManager's free templates

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What Is Business Case Analysis (BCA)?

Oct 15, 2019 by Thomas Bush

Business case analysis is a tool used to evaluate potential business decisions. It’s often used in the corporate world where project managers and other front-line employees need to convince company stakeholders for their support. The project manager , who is responsible for conducting the analysis, assesses the costs, risks, and benefits of a decision using their specialist knowledge. Then, company stakeholders review the analysis (in the form of a report) to determine whether or not they should approve the decision.

This valuable business analysis tool may sound daunting, but is surprisingly easy to use. In this article, we’ll walk you through the basics of business case analysis, discussing its key features, potential uses, and much more.

Key Features of Business Case Analysis

The basic purpose of a business case analysis is to assess a decision or action. In business terms, the most important criteria for this purpose are costs, risks, and benefits. In other words, a business case analysis report should answer three basic questions:

  • Costs: What are the costs of making this decision?
  • Risks: What are the risks of making this decision?
  • Benefits: What are the expected benefits of making this decision?

Ultimately, the goal of answering these questions is to assess whether or not to make the decision. If the expected benefits of the decision significantly outweigh the costs and risks, the decision should be made. If, however, the costs and risks outweigh the benefits, an alternative should be considered.

Business case analysis usually has a financial focus, whereby costs, risks, and benefits are compared in dollar terms. However, business case analysis can also use other quantitative or qualitative lenses . For example, the costs of a decision might be measured in time (instead of dollars). Similarly, the risks or benefits of a decision might be measured in changes to brand value, customer satisfaction, or even legal status. When business case analysis does not focus on financial impacts, it’s important to look for objective ways to compare these upsides and downsides, so that stakeholders can make an informed choice.

Business Case Analysis vs Business Case

You may be wondering what the difference is between a business case analysis and a business case. The truth is that both of these terms refer to the same business analysis tool . The difference is that business case usually refers to the report itself, whereas business case analysis refers to the overall approach to analysis.

Why Use Business Case Analysis

There are two powerful reasons to use business case analysis. The first is that it forces the individual creating the report to consider all of the costs, risks, and benefits of making a decision. When making a decision, it’s easy to focus on the desired results instead of realistically evaluating every possible outcome. When forced to think about exceptional or undesired outcomes, there’s a greater chance the correct decision will be made.

The second reason to use business case analysis is that it allows a subject-matter expert (in most cases, the product manager) to easily transfer and contextualize relevant knowledge to stakeholders. Without a comprehensive report from the expert, stakeholders may not see the significance of certain costs, risks, or benefits.

When to Use Business Case Analysis

Business case analysis is most often used in large companies where the project manager needs approval from stakeholders. In small and medium-sized companies, the project manager is usually the primary stakeholder, so there is no need for external approval.

With that said, it can still be beneficial to conduct business case analysis even in smaller companies. This is because it forces the decision-maker to consider all possibilities, as mentioned above.

Business Case Analysis for Comparing Actions

So far, we’ve discussed using business case analysis to evaluate a single decision. However, business case analysis can also be an extremely effective way to compare two or more courses of action. Once again, this is partially because conducting business case analysis forces you to consider a number of possibilities. While two courses of action may have the same expected benefits, they may have different risks or costs, making it much easier to decide which one to pursue.

Structuring Your Business Case

Like most types of business analysis , business case analysis is usually presented in the form of a written report (the business case). While there are no set rules for this kind of report, here is a simple structure that includes the basic elements:

  • Executive Summary: Like other corporate reports, a business case analysis report should begin with an executive summary. This section should summarize the results of the analysis and give appropriate recommendations regarding the decision in question.
  • Introduction: The main purpose of the introduction is to provide context for the report. It should discuss what is being analyzed and why (in other words, the objectives of the analysis)
  • Methods (Optional): Optionally, the report can include a section discussing methodology. If included, this section should discuss the approaches used to analyze the potential outcomes of the decision.
  • Expected Outcomes: A crucial part of the report is the outcomes section. This section should discuss the expected outcomes — in particular, costs and benefits — of the business decision.
  • Risk Assessment: Similarly important is the risk assessment section . Here, the report should discuss potential negative outcomes that may result if certain assumptions (leading to the expected outcomes) are not met. 
  • Conclusion: The report should close with a conclusion. This section should summarize the findings of the report and provide appropriate recommendations with those findings in mind.

Final Thoughts

Business case analysis is a decision-making tool whereby reports — called business cases — are created to discuss the costs, risks, and benefits of a given decision. Often employed in large companies, this type of analysis allows for knowledgeable project managers to evaluate decisions in a way that stakeholders can understand.

The business case itself should include an executive summary, introduction, expected outcomes, risks, and a conclusion. It may also include other sections, such as methodology. Most important, however, is an objective analysis of the positive and negative outcomes of the decision itself.

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How to Write a Business Case: Examples, Templates, and Checklists

By Joe Weller | April 24, 2019 (updated February 26, 2023)

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This article presents expert tips on how to write a business case. We also provide a checklist to prepare for, write, and present a business case, along with free, easy-to-use Word and PowerPoint business case templates.

Included on this page, you'll find details on how to write a business case , sections to include in your business case , a business case checklist , and business case presentation examples .

What Is a Business Case?

A business case is a formal, structured document; an informal, short document; or a verbal exchange that defines the benefits of an initiative or project.

In addition, a business case forecasts the costs, benefits, and risks of an initiative, so decision makers — and even the project initiators — can decide whether a project is worthwhile and why to choose one approach over similar strategies.

Jim Maholic has over 20 years of experience with IT strategy and business case development, including two stints as a CIO, two management positions with the Big Four consulting firms, and leadership positions at several technology companies.

He describes a business case in this way: “A business case is the full story that explains the ROI for a capital project. It begins with a statement of a business problem, then explores how we can solve it or what the value of solving it is. For example, ‘Our revenues aren’t rising as fast as they should,’ or ‘Inventory isn't turning over as fast as it should,’ or ‘Costs are too high.’ That's where the business case starts.

Jim Maholic

“Then, we find out how big this problem is. We talk to people in the company and find out what they think the value of solving the problem is. All this information is packaged into a story that says, ‘Here's the problem. Here's the value of solving the problem. Here's what it costs in hardware, software, or whatever. Here are the benefits. And here’s the whole story.’”

Business Cases Explain Why You Should Invest

A business case explains why stakeholders should invest in a project. The purpose of a business case contrasts with that of a project proposal , which provides a high-level outline of what you want to initiate and its benefits to the company, or that of a project plan , which explains how you execute a project. You should create your business case during the earliest stages of project planning .

A business case can also become a key document for a project manager when planning, creating milestones, and evaluating progress.

Other names and uses for business cases are financial justification, cost-benefit analysis (CBA) , total cost of ownership (TCO) analysis , and return on investment (ROI) analysis . Nonprofits and government entities sometimes refer to business cases as case statements .

What Is Business Case Analysis (BCA)?

A business case analysis (BCA) looks not only at lowest costs, but also at technical value and other nonquantitative factors in what is known as a best-value analysis . The BCA addresses the triple constraints of time, money, and scope, and it can include measures such as performance, reliability, viability, and supportability.

Although business case analysis is used interchangeably with business case , some experts consider the analysis to be part of the business case as a whole.

What Is a Business Case Used For?

A business case helps a company or an organization prepare for new ventures or changes. This document is a crucial building block of project success and underpins the foundations of  senior-level involvement and strong planning. Business cases summarize the benefits of an endeavor, clarifying a project’s business value to help stakeholders make decisions.

A good business case should focus less on the technology, domain knowledge, or specific deliverables and more on the users of a product and the goals of a project. In the same vein, a project manager should focus not only on creating output, but also on delivering value. An initiative can offer many types of value, including contributing to strategic aims, increasing efficiency, and supporting compliance. Insufficient attention to the details of a business case and the accompanying research can lead to poor project results.

Business cases usually describe these items:

  • A business problem or opportunity
  • Possible solutions and their benefits and disadvantages (sometimes known as disbenefits )
  • Risks associated with the main solution
  • Implementation timeline
  • Consequences for implementing a solution and for retaining the status quo
  • Resources required for the initiative or project

Advantages of a Business Case

A business case may seem like just another document destined for the shelf or the shredder, but it can offer real advantages:

  • All stakeholders have similar expectations concerning the value and benefits of an initiative to an organization.
  • You can convert a business case into a project plan with milestones. You increase the chances of a project’s success with planning.
  • A business case becomes a gauge for determining whether an endeavor continues to offer value during execution and after a team produces a deliverable.
  • Project planners can more easily establish objectives and goals.
  • You can more easily discern success.
  • Teams apply the right resources more efficiently.

Who Prepares a Business Case?

You might think that business cases are the purview of financial officers and accountants. In fact, people who have direct knowledge of processes and teams should be responsible for creating these documents.

Some pundits say that the individual who advocates change must enact the change, so anyone in any role could assume the responsibilities for producing a business case. This includes consultants, line managers, or IT managers. In some organizations, the project sponsor or project manager may guide the preparation of the business case and include input from relevant departments and SMEs.

When Do You Need a Business Case?

It’s no longer enough to complete a project and present a deliverable. In an economy that often seems as unstable as it was in 2008, stakeholders want to see that a deliverable creates value and benefits for an organization. This is particularly true for complex projects or those that  require justification for enlisting external resources. Public sector projects frequently need business cases.

What's in a Business Case?

A business case outlines for a decision maker the benefits and business value of a proposed initiative. The term business case frequently refers to a written document that is submitted for review or presented at a meeting, but can also apply to an informal, spoken proposal.

What Should Be in a Business Case?

A well-written business case flows logically from presenting a problem or opportunity through the advantages and disadvantages of solutions to describing the recommended solution. When you require great detail, you can chunk text into sub-sections so that the content is easier to scan, as well as faster and less overwhelming to read. Following are the common sections of a business case in sequential order:

  • Executive summary
  • Problem statement
  • Analysis and financial details
  • Recommendation

Many organizations have pre-established templates for writing business cases. If your organization doesn’t, search online for free, easy-to-use business case templates for construction business cases, one-page business cases, and more. Depending on the narrative needs of the business case, it can contain many possible sections:

  • Preface: A preface may indicate the intended audience and any related documents.
  • Table of Contents: If your document is delivered as a PDF file, consider hyperlinking your table of contents to the appropriate sections.
  • What is the problem?
  • What do you believe is the value of solving the problem?
  • How much are you asking for?
  • When will we start seeing benefits?

     “I’ve had some presentations that don't get beyond that first page,” Maholic muses.

  • Description of the Product or Service: When proposing a new object or concept, detail what the deliverable is and how it works.
  • A Problem Statement or Mission Statement: By describing the problem or the mission of the organization, you can contextualize the proposed initiative.
  • Business Drivers for the Initiative: Indicate what benefits will contribute to the strategic aims of the organization.
  • Finance Section: Explain how much the project will cost and whether it is affordable. Detail the cash flow. Describe the expenses to execute (or not execute) the project in a cost comparison against forecasted benefits. Conduct a sensitivity analysis , a technique for determining how the different values of an independent variable affect a dependent variable.
  • Financial and nonfinancial benefits
  • Quality improvements
  • Cost savings through efficiencies
  • Added revenue
  • Competitiveness
  • Improved customer services
  • Options: What are the possible solutions to the problem? Usually, you narrow this list to 3 to 5 viable choices. Frequently, you include a “do nothing” option and a benchmark option. Some organizations require the do-nothing option; others require it only if the do-nothing option is a legitimate possibility. Quantify the benefits of each potential solution. Also, outline the risks, issues, and interdependencies for each solution.
  • What is required?
  • How is it done?
  • Who does what?
  • When will things happen?
  • Assessments or Analysis: Your analysis should list assumptions and consider cash flow and costs. Describe the risks of the project and the plans to deal with them. Also, discuss how you will leverage opportunities. Describe the context of your undertaking using PESTLE (political, economic, sociological, technological, legal, and environmental) analysis.
  • Project Approach: Detail the organization of the project, including governance and accountability, roles and responsibilities, and the schedule of progress reporting. Describe the purchasing strategy for completing the endeavor. Will you lease equipment? Rent office space? Hire contractors or employees?
  • Recommendation and Next Steps: Note the recommended solution and immediate required action.
  • Appendix: Add supporting documentation here, such as spreadsheets, charts, or drawings.

Considerations for Executive Presentations

The sections that comprise a business case may vary depending on your house style and the type of initiative. Jim Maholic says, “I package my business cases this way: I set up a one-hour meeting, so I have maybe 20 slides, but 10 to 15 slides are plenty. In reality, I might have 100 slides, but I add those in an appendix.” You may have credible supporting information, but you don’t want to bore your audience of decision makers by slogging through each slide.

“They might allocate an hour, but honestly, you're going to get their attention for 10 to 15 minutes, and then they'll start checking email and stuff,” Maholic adds. “You really have to be crisp in how you do this and know where you're going.

“Start with, ‘We have this problem,’ followed by, ‘Here are the people that we talked to who validated that this is a problem. They offered ideas about solving this problem, so we could see this substantial benefit,’” he notes.

“What matters in an executive meeting is that I answer the main questions: What is the problem? What is the cost of not solving it? What are the benefits of solving it? And when do we see the benefits? You may address additional questions later in the meeting or after the meeting, on an individual, offline basis,” Maholic says.

Business Case Templates

Using templates, you can more easily create business cases because you can focus on your research and fill in the blanks. The following free, downloadable templates are customizable for your organization’s needs.

Business Case Presentation Template

Business Case Presentation Template

You can lengthen this short PowerPoint presentation template to accommodate more detail. The business case presentation template includes spaces for describing the following elements: the project name, the executive summary, the project description, the financials, the recommended solution, the assumptions and dependencies, the options, and the benefits.

‌ Download Business Case Presentation Template - PowerPoint

Simple Business Case Template

Simple Business Case Template

A simple business case template serves a small project or a small organization. It can cover extensive details if necessary. It includes spaces for describing the following elements of the case: the title, the executive summary, the business objective, the target users, the financials and costs, the assumptions and dependencies, the implementation strategy, the required resources, and the project governance and reporting.

Download Simple Business Case Template

Word | PDF  | Smartsheet

Healthcare Business Case Template

Healthcare Business Case Template

A healthcare business case template helps you explain the current setup and how the proposed solution can create improvements. It provides space for a one-page executive summary, context for the problem or opportunity, a description of the current situation, an explanation of the proposed changes, and details of how the changes can affect your organization and any other entities.

Download Healthcare Business Case Template

Word | Google Docs

New Product Business Case Template

New Product Business Case Template

A new product business case template explores the business landscape for a new product or service. In addition to the meta information, such as the title, the author, and the executive summary, the template includes space to describe the current mission statement, the proposed product or service, the marketing strategy, an analysis of competitors, SWOT analysis , an overview of the implementation plan, and financial details.

Download New Product Business Case Template

Preparing to Write the Business Case

You can expedite your business process by understanding business case structure and using a template. In addition, having the correct perspective and following best practices can contribute to your success.

Why Are You Doing the Project?

Before you start researching and writing, understand why you want to initiate a project. The goal of a project is to solve problems. What is a problem? A problem prevents your organization from achieving its full potential. To begin, determine what problem the project is trying to solve.

Projects have deliverables, whether tangible or intangible. Think of an outcome as the result created by the deliverables. Benefits represent quantifiable improvements derived from an outcome. When a customer or team member can leverage these benefits, they become advantages.

Do Your Business Case Research

To start, review the mission statement(s) for the organization or the project. Identify the sources of data for your business case. One way to encourage the acceptance of your proposal is to discuss your rough estimates of the costs and resources with a project sponsor or customer before you embark on the business case. This helps you and the sponsor understand each other’s expectations and lessens the chance of sticker shock during the executive presentation. Then interview the people who conduct the day-to-day work and get their perspective on problems and possible solutions.

Do the Business Case Math

You must consider whether the returns justify the request. “If we're asking for $3 million, we've got to show that the project benefits far exceed that amount,” asserts Maholic. “With returns of $10, $15, or $20 million, you're going to get their attention. If you say the benefits are $300 million, they're going to think you've fallen off the truck somewhere, because that's not realistic. On the other hand, if you show benefits of $3.5 million for a cost of $3 million, that's probably not going to beat the projected return of any other project that comes across their desk.”

Consider Who the Business Case Is For

Whether the business case comes in document form or as a presentation, the project sponsor and key stakeholders will study it. Consider the key audience for each section of your document and write with that audience in mind.

The most convincing arguments for projects are those that your team can initiate and wrap up within six months, as well as produce considerable quantifiable results. Especially when big money is on the table, your proposal will compete with others from different departments. “No company has all the money it wants to invest in everything — it has to prioritize. The business case helps evaluate what the return will be for each of the projects that comes across the board's desk for approval,” explains Maholic.

Furthermore, a business case presents estimates. A business case should be built on sound research, but no one has a lock on certitude. “I think first-time business case writers in particular get caught up in building some great story. But seasoned executives get requests all the time, and they're not buffaloed by clever-sounding words or fancy spreadsheets,” Maholic cautions.

“Your ideas have to be rooted in something sensible, not just, ‘I bet we can raise revenues by 15 percent,’” he explains. Grand plans may be possible, but the key, according to Maholic, is to help decision makers understand how it is possible.

How Do You Write a Business Case?

When you have the main questions in mind and a sense of the required sections and format, you can begin to write. Consider limiting the number of authors to ensure an effective writing effort that’s consistent in style and voice. Then follow these tips:

  • Concisely cover the core content with enough detail, so stakeholders can make an informed decision.
  • Compare options, so decision makers understand the landscape.
  • Be clear, concise, and captivating.
  • Avoid jargon as much as possible.
  • Demonstrate the value of the project to the business by creating a credible and accurate argument.
  • Clearly describe the landscape for the initiative, including its dependencies. Enumerating these dependencies is crucial because contextual changes can alter the project parameters or eliminate the need for the project altogether.
  • Focus on the business and the business value rather than the knowledge domain covered by the intended project deliverable.

How Do You Know You Have Enough Detail?

You determine the length of your business cases according to the scope and complexity of your proposed endeavour. A complex project means a long business case; a small, short project means a short business case.

However, Maholic cautions against adding too much detail — conciseness can be a challenge. “You may take 4 to 6 weeks to create a business. You might talk to 50 or 100 people. There's this gnawing urge in some people to show everything they've collected in the executive presentation. Look how hard we worked. Look how smart I am . That's just awful.

“You have enough data and slides when you can answer those 4 or 5 basic questions. There may be 100 other slides, but those are supporting detail,” he says.

Common Mistakes in Writing Business Cases

You can strengthen your business case by avoiding common mistakes:

  • Forget What Your White Papers Say: Maholic finds that when salespeople create cases for customers, they frequently rely on the benefits outlined in a product’s white papers. He notes, “Saying your product cuts costs by Y percent is a great place to start, but it has to be balanced by what's in front of you regarding a particular customer.” He continues, “As a salesperson, you may say that your product can increase revenue by 5 percent. That may be true for past customers, but this particular customer may have three straight years of declining revenues. It's silly to say that a product is going to both arrest a decline and bump up revenue by 5 percent. You have to think things through. That’s the analysis part. You can't just mouth off.”
  • Spreadsheets Are not the Main Show: "Too often, I think, people hear business case , and they jump right to building a spreadsheet,” Maholic says. “They're eager to build the mother of all spreadsheets and show how smart they are by demonstrating the mother of all spreadsheets. While certainly spreadsheets are necessary to show the math, the spreadsheet is only a small part of the solution. Spreadsheets don't really articulate the problem or indicate who you talked to or what you analyzed to get to that solution,” he adds.
  • Arguments Do not Equal More Money: Sometimes, people believe that a strong case justifies a more generous price tag. Not so, says Maholic: “As a decision maker, having a better business case doesn't mean I'm going to roll over and say, ‘Sure, you can charge me an extra million dollars.’ A good business case means the project has the value to go forward. Now, we're going to start negotiating and I'm still going to work to get the best price I can. People who've done business cases before know that. But people who are new to them don't completely understand that.”
  • Remember That It’s About Value, Not About Toys: For startups, the coolness factor of the technology or product may carry some weight, but for most organizations, a business case must focus on the business value without getting lost in the domain knowledge and technical details. Maholic explains: “Nobody at the executive level cares what the throughput ratio is of this process or that stack. What they want to know is, ‘Do I get revenue more quickly? Do I cut costs more deeply? Tell me what the value of doing X is, and then you can go off and buy whatever toys you want to in order to do X.’”

Steps to Produce a Business Case

Your organization may have a tribal understanding of the best process for creating a business case. Some employees may advocate for following the Ds , which refer to the steps to produce a business case. The Ds can include as many as six steps, but generally focus on these four:

  • Discover your problem or opportunity.
  • Design your solutions and alternatives.
  • Develop the details that describe the pros and cons of each potential solution.
  • Deploy the business case.

Some advocates add the Define step to the beginning of the process and the Deliver step to the end. For best results, create your business case in the following order:

  • Determine your problem or opportunity.
  • Research the context for your proposal as appropriate: When developing a new product, your research may focus on the market; when acquiring new training or software, you may review current internal processes; and when making a new purchase, you may interview dozens of team members who use current tools and procedures.
  • Compare alternative approaches and recommend the most appropriate strategy.
  • Gather supporting data and evidence for the recommended approach.
  • Write the business case.
  • Write the executive summary.
  • Edit your business case draft.
  • Present your business case to either the final authority or the personnel who will be instrumental in implementing the case plan.

‌ Download Business Case Process Checklist  

The Business Case in Project Development

Contrary to what you might imagine, the business case can be a living document. Starting with the review process, stakeholders may reject, cancel, postpone, accept, or adjust the business case. To some extent, the business case becomes the guidebook for your initiative. Stakeholders and the project manager should refer to the business case throughout the lifecycle of the project to ensure that efforts (and intentions) remain on track.

What Are the Features of a Project Business Case?

A well-considered business case offers the following characteristics: an easy-to-understand description of the business value of the initiative and the immediate benefits of the project, including details of the positive impact on organizational strategy.

How Do You Analyze a Business Case?

In university-level business schools, business case studies (or case studies) function as teaching tools to help students use their analytic skills. Case studies describe a company and how it employs a solution. Following is the suggested approach for students analyzing a case:

  • Review the case in detail. Identify the key issues.
  • Determine 2 to 5 essential problems.
  • Look for solutions to those problems.
  • Describe your recommended solution.

What Is a Full Business Case?

A business case is a structured, detailed document that presents the justification for the commitment of financial and other resources to an endeavor. Business cases help you gain the support of management and other stakeholders, as well as approval for projects and programs.

What Is a Business Case in Project Management?

An approved business case can have a long life. Although the project sponsor ultimately owns the business case, it is the project manager who uses the business case as the guidebook for expectations and dependencies. In addition, the business case becomes an important document in an organization’s project portfolio management process. During this process, a company balances its resources with its strategic objectives to determine the livelihood of all the projects it undertakes.

History and Origins of Business Cases

The formal business case has its roots in 19th-century Europe, particularly with the work of French-Italian engineer-economist Jules Dupuit. His contribution included statistical tools to identify, measure, and value the benefits beyond merely determining the lowest bidder. Specifically, Dupuit is credited with inventing what he called the benefit-cost analysis . Today, professionals recognize the value of business cases outside of public works and government. Both nonprofit and for-profit organizations regularly use business cases.

Resources and Examples for Creating Your Business Case

If you’re new to business cases, you don’t have to start empty-handed. We offer resources to help you begin writing. Please see the following examples and templates:

  • Here’s an example of a business case in a classic document format . This particular business case argues against a capital investment.
  • This example presents three business cases for one higher education department . The  presentation comes in a slide format.
  • In this article, Jim Maholic offers a template for creating your business case .

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  • The beginner’s guide to writing an effe ...

The beginner’s guide to writing an effective business case

Julia Martins contributor headshot

Nearly every project needs to be approved—whether that means getting the simple go-ahead from your team or gaining the support of an executive stakeholder. You may be familiar with using a project plan or project charter to propose a new initiative and get the green light for a project. But if your proposed project represents a significant business investment, you may need to build a business case.

If you’ve never written a business case, we’re here to help. With a few resources and a little planning, you can write a business case that will help you get the resources and support you need to manage a successful project.

What is a business case?

A business case is a document that explains the value or benefits your company will gain if you pursue a significant business investment or initiative. This initiative can be anything from the messaging for a new product or feature launch, a proposal to increase spend on a current initiative, or a significant investment with a new agency or contractor—to name a few. A compelling business case will outline the expected benefits of this significant investment decision. Key stakeholders will use the business case you provide to determine whether or not to move forward with an initiative.

If you’ve never created a business case, it may sound similar to other early project planning documentation. Here’s how it stacks up:

The difference between a business case and business plan

A  business case  is a proposal for a new strategy or large initiative. It should outline the business needs and benefits your company will receive from pursuing this opportunity.

A  business plan , on the other hand, is an outline for a totally new business. Typically, you’d draft a business plan to map out your business strategy, your mission and vision statements, and how you’re planning on getting there. There may be a case where you create a business plan for an already-existing business, but you’d only do so if you’re trying to take your business in a significantly new direction.

Business case vs. executive summary

Business case vs. project charter.

If you need to create an elevator pitch for your project but you don’t quite need the full business case treatment, you might need a project charter. Much like a business case, a project charter outlines key details of an initiative. Specifically, a project charter will cover three main elements of your project: project objectives, project scope, and key project stakeholders. Your management team will then use the project charter to approve further project development.

Do you need a business case?

Not every project needs a business case—or even a project charter. Plan to build a business case only for initiatives or investments that will require significant business resources. If you’re working on a smaller initiative, consider creating a project charter to pitch your project idea to relevant stakeholders.

Even if you don’t need to pitch your project to any stakeholders, you should be ready to answer basic questions about your proposed project, like:

What is this project’s purpose?

Why are we working on this project?

How does this project connect to organizational goals and objectives?

Which metrics will we use to measure the success of the project ?

Who is working on this project?

When is this project going to be completed?

5 steps for creating and pitching a business case

Your business case shouldn’t just include key facts and figures—it should also tell a story of why pursuing a particular investment or initiative is a good idea for your business. When in doubt, avoid jargon and be brief—but always focus on communicating the value of the project. If this is your first time creating a business case, don’t worry. Follow these five steps to create a solid one.

1. Gather input

You don’t have to write a business case on your own. Instead, make sure appropriate team members and stakeholders are contributing to the relevant sections. For example, the IT team should be involved in any tooling and timeline decisions, while the finance team should review any budget and risk management sections. If you’re creating a business case to propose a new initiative, product line, or customer persona, make sure you also consult subject matter experts.

2. Plan to write your business case out of order

Some of the first things that appear in your business case—like your executive summary—should actually be drafted last, when you have all of the resources and information to make an informed suggestion. Your executive summary will present all of your findings and make a recommendation for the business based on a variety of factors. By gathering all of those details first—like project purpose, financial information, and project risk—you can ensure your executive summary has all of the relevant information.

3. Build your business case incrementally

A business case describes a significant investment for your company. Similarly, simply writing a business case is a significant investment of your time. Not every initiative is right for your business—so make sure you’re checking your work with stakeholders as you go. You don’t want to sink hours and weeks into this document only for it to be rejected by executive stakeholders right off the bat.

Consider doing a “soft launch” with an outline of your business case to your project sponsor or an executive stakeholder you have a good relationship with to confirm this initiative is something you should pursue. Then, as you build the different sections of your business case, check back in with your key stakeholders to confirm there are no deal-breakers.

4. Refine the document

As you create sections of your business case, you may need to go back and refine other sections. For example, once you’ve finished doing a cost-benefit analysis with your financial team, make sure you update any budget-related project risks.

Before presenting your business case, do a final read through with key stakeholders to look for any sections that can be further refined. At this stage, you’ll also want to write the executive summary that goes at the top of the document. Depending on the length of your business case, your executive summary should be one to two pages long.

5. Present the business case

The final step is to actually present your business case. Start with a quick elevator pitch that answers the what, why, and how of your proposal. Think of this presentation as your chance to explain the current business need, how your proposal addresses the need, and what the business benefits are. Make sure to address any risks or concerns you think your audience would have.

Don’t go through your business case page by page. Instead, share the document with stakeholders before the presentation so they have a chance to read through it ahead of time. Then, after your presentation, share the document again so stakeholders can dig into details.

A business case checklist

Start with the why.

The first section of the business case is your chance to make a compelling argument about the new project. Make sure you draft an argument that appeals to your audience’s interests and needs. Despite being the first section in your business case, this should be the last section you write. In addition to including the  traditional elements of an executive summary , make sure you answer:

What business problem is your project solving?  This is your chance to explain why your project is important and why executive stakeholders should consider pursuing this opportunity.

What is your business objective ?  What happens at the end of a successful project? How will you measure success—and what does a successful project mean for your business?

How does this business case fit into your overall company business strategy plan?  Make sure your proposed business case is connected to important  company goals . The initiative proposed in your business case should move the needle towards your company's  vision statement .

Outline financials and the return on investment

At this point in your business case, you should outline the project finance fundamentals. Don’t expect to create this section on your own—you should draft this in partnership with your company’s finance team. In particular, this section should answer:

How much will this project cost?  Even if the initiative is completely new to your company, do some research to estimate the project costs.

What does each individual component of the project cost?  In addition to estimating the total overall cost, break down the different project costs. For example, you might have project costs for new tools and resources, competitive intelligence resourcing, agency costs, etc.

What is the expected return on investment (ROI)?  You’ve talked about the costs—now talk about how your company will benefit from this initiative. Make sure to explain how you calculated the ROI, too.

How will this project impact cash flow?  Cash flow is the amount of money being transferred into and out of your business. Significant investments are going to cost a lot of money, so they’ll negatively impact cash flow—but you should also expect a high ROI, which will positively impact cash flow.

What is the sensitivity analysis?  Sensitivity analysis is a summary of how uncertain your numbers are. There will be a variety of variables that impact your business case. Make sure to explain what those variables are, and how that could impact your projections.

Preview project details

Your business case is proposing a new initiative. In addition to the financial risks, take some time to preview project details. For example, your business case should include:

Your  project objectives  and  key project deliverables .  What will happen at the end of the project? What are you expecting to create or deliver once the project is over?

Your  project plan .  A project plan is a blueprint of the key elements your team needs to accomplish in order to successfully achieve your project goals.

The  project scope .  What are the boundaries of your project? What exact goals, deliverables, and deadlines will you be working towards?

A list of relevant  project stakeholders .  Who are the important project stakeholders and key decision makers for this work? This can include the members of the project team that would be working on this initiative, executive stakeholders who would sponsor the project, and any external stakeholders who might be involved.

A general  project roadmap  in a Gantt-chart like view.  At this stage in the process, you don’t need to provide a detailed project timeline, but you should outline a general sense of when each project stage will happen in relation to the others. To do this, create a project roadmap in  Gantt-chart like software . Make sure to include any important  project milestones  in your roadmap as well.

Any important project dependencies.  Is there anything that would get in the way of this project getting started? Does this work rely on any other work that’s currently in flight?

Discuss project risks

Once you’ve outlined the financial impact and important project details, make sure you include any potential project risks. If you haven’t already, create a  project risk management plan  for your business case. Project risk management isn’t the process of eliminating risk—instead, it’s about identifying, analyzing, and proactively responding to any potential project risks. Clearly defining each project risk and how that risk might impact your project can best equip you and the project team to manage and avoid those risks.

In the risk section of your business case, include:

A risk analysis of any potential project risks.  What is the risk? How likely is it to happen? What is the priority level of this risk?

What, if any, assumptions you are making.  In project risk management, assumptions are anything you think will be true about the project, without those details being guaranteed facts. Basing project decisions around an assumption can open your project up to risk. Make sure you ratify every project assumption to avoid jeopardizing project success.

Any comparable alternatives in the market.  If you’re writing a business case to pitch a new product or angle in the market, evaluate anything that already exists. Could the alternative impact your financial assessment or project success?

Develop an action plan

In the final section of your business case, outline how you will turn this business case into an actionable project. This section should answer questions like:

How will decisions be made?  Who is responsible for the project? Who is the project sponsor? If you haven’t already, consider creating a  RACI chart  to outline project responsibilities.

How will progress be measured and reported?  Not every project stakeholder needs to be notified of every project change. Outline key parts of your project communication plan , as well as how you’ll communicate  project status updates .

What is the next course of action?  If the management team ratifies this business case, what next steps will you take to put this into action?

Bring your business case to life

You’ve built a solid business case and it’s been ratified—congratulations! The next step is to bring your business case to life. It can be intimidating to  initiate large-scale change , and implementing your business case is no exception.

If you haven’t already, make sure you have a  project management tool  in place to manage and organize your new initiative. With a central source of truth to track who’s doing what by when, share status updates, and keep project stakeholders in the loop, you can turn a great business case into a successful project.

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What is a business case and how to write one (with template)

business case analysis about

In this guide, we’ll define what a business case is, help you determine when you need one (and when you don’t), and walk you through a four-step process for creating a business case.

What Is A Business Case And How To Write One (With Template)

We’ll also outline what you should include in a business case and provide a free template you can use when writing a business case to secure stakeholder support for your next big project.

What is a business case?

Every project needs the support and approval of key stakeholders before it can launch. Many project and product leaders use a project plan or charter to communicate pertinent details to those involved.

Similarly, for large initiatives that require significant resources, potential investors are presented a business case outlining the costs, benefits, business need, and risks involved.

A business case is a document that defines the value it will deliver if executed and benefits the company over the costs involved. With a thorough understanding of the components to be included and necessary resources, it is possible to create a compelling business plan.

Why do you need a business case?

If a project is green-lit without a business case, it can lead to serious issues down the road. A project without clearly articulated expectations and goals can go on endlessly and aimlessly. This leads to wasted resources, money, and time with no outcome in the end.

A business case enables you to:

Align with strategy

Gain stakeholder support, prioritize projects, track outcomes.

A business case helps to showcase how a project is aligned with the overall strategy and goals of the organization. It clearly defines the problem or opportunity that the project is intended to address.

A business case also enables you to determine expected benefits and outcomes before you start a project or initiatives, thus projecting how the project contribute to achieving the organization’s goals.

A business case is a useful tool to provide a clear rationale for pursuing the project. A thorough business case can help key stakeholders decide whether to invest in the project by evaluating the feasibility, costs, risks and potential returns. A business case presentation gives stakeholders an opportunity to ask questions and address concerns.

A business case defines the value that the project is expected to deliver. Based on the value delivered by each project, business and product leaders can prioritize projects for budget cuts or further investments. Proper prioritization helps the organization achieve the goals aligned with the business strategy.

A business case provides a roadmap for the project, including the goals, milestones, and key deliverables. Once the project starts, a roadmap helps you keep track of your progress toward project goals, including what has already been achieved and what will be delivered at the end. Providing a timely update on the project to the key stakeholders is critical for setting expectations.

When you don’t need a business case

A business case is certainly helpful for large initiatives requiring support from key stakeholders, but there are some situations where creating a business case might be a waste of time.

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For instance, small or low-risk projects that would not impact the organization in any negative way do not require a business case because it would not make sense to spend that much effort on a low-scale project.

A business case might also be considered superfluous for a project that is already ongoing. It can be tempting to create a business case post-launch for the sole purpose of documenting decisions made and milestones achieved. However, it’s typically not worth the time investment because such a business case rarely adds any value or insights.

Before you take on the task of creating a business case, it’s important to carefully consider the need and to ensure that doing so would produce valuable insights to the decision-making process. It is in the best interest of everyone to forgo the business case creation process in situations where it does not provide any additional value and to focus instead on other activities that directly impact the project.

Business case vs. business plan

A business plan is not the same thing as a business case.

A business case outlines a proposed project and its potential benefits to convince key stakeholders to invest. It typically includes analysis of costs, value to be delivered, and associated risks, along with ROI.

A business plan, on the other hand, outlines the overall strategy and goals for an entire organization. It defines the what, why, and who for the business, covering the products and services offered, target segment, marketing and sales strategy, and operational and financial projections over a period of time. A business plan is designed to help potential outside investors make informed decisions about whether the business is worth investing in.

The table below breaks down the differences between a business plan and a business case:

How to write a business case

Before we dive into steps to create a business case, let’s review what we’ve learned so far:

  • A business case is a document created during the initiation of the project but is referred throughout the project lifecycle
  • A strong business case helps in building confidence and gaining support of key stakeholders
  • A business case also helps you track a project’s progress over time
  • A weak business case that is not aligned with strategy can lead to project failure

To write a business case, follow this four-step process:

  • Identify the business need
  • Explore all possible solutions
  • Propose the best approach
  • Outline the implementation process

1. Identify the business need

Projects are initiated to solve a business need and achieve a value or a benefit aligned to the goals of the organization.

The first step to create a business case is to identify the business problem and define it clearly. Market research and any available data to justify the business need is helpful to include in the business case.

2. Explore all possible solutions

Once the business problem has been identified, the next step is to explore all the possible solutions for that problem. You can do this systematically by listing out all the possible solutions along with other parameters, such as:

  • The benefits of each approach
  • Feasibility
  • Time period
  • Assumptions

A detailed analysis of each option predicting the cash flows, ROI, and value delivered would help key stakeholders understand each solution and cross-question the assumptions, feasibility, and other parameters.

3. Propose the best approach

Set a criteria to showcase how you evaluate each solution and then come up with the best out of the list.

To set the criteria, identify attributes that closely align to the organization’s strategy. For example, if the organization’s goal is to increase revenue in the next year, then an important criterion might be the solution with maximum revenue projection.

List the top three-to-five attributes to evaluate alternative solutions against and rank each solution 1–5. Once you rank all of them, total the ranks for all the attributes to indicate a clear winner.

Document this process and present it to stakeholders to ensure they are on the same page with the selection process of the best solution.

4. Outline the implementation process

Once the best solution has been proposed, the next step is to think about how it will be implemented.

When it comes to planning the implementation process, you need to define:

  • Resources needed
  • Timeline from initiation till the end
  • Risks and how to mitigate
  • Milestones and when they will be achieved
  • Total cost involved and how much will be used by when

These four steps, when captured in detail, can help you win the support of key stakeholders and kick off your project with a solid foundation and a clear objective.

What is included in a business case?

Now that we’ve walked through the steps of how to create a business case, let us also take a look at what to include in the business case document to support the four steps outlined above.

Here’s what to include in a business case:

  • Executive summary — A quick overview of the project and the topics being covered in the business case
  • Business problem — A description of the business problem and why it is important to solve it
  • Possible solutions — A list of possible solutions and how the best possible solution is identified
  • Project definition — Define the business objectives to be achieved along with general information about the project
  • Project plan — Create the project plan with key elements your team needs to accomplish to successfully achieve your project goals
  • Project scope — Clearly define what would be covered as a part of the project and what is out of scope to avoid any confusion
  • Project budget — Estimated cost involved to complete the project needs to be captured with a detailed breakdown
  • Project roadmap — Projection of the estimated timeline for each stage of the project to be done. Be sure to include any important project milestones
  • Project financials — Financial metrics depicting the cash flow, such as NPV, IRR, ROI, and payback period to help stakeholders understand the financial value the project can bring in over a period of time
  • Risk assessment — Capture the risks involved and the steps planned to mitigate the risks
  • Project stakeholders — A list of key stakeholders involved can help anyone looking at the document to reach out to them when needed. The list can include the project team, sponsoring executives, and any external stakeholders who might be involved

Business case template

To help you get started writing a business case for your next big project or initiative, we created a business case template that you can download and customize for free.

Business Case Template

You can access this simple business case template by clicking here (be sure to select File > Make a copy from the main menu bar before editing the template).

Preparing the business case is only half the journey of initiating a project. The next step is to present the business plan to key stakeholders , answer their queries, and compel them to support the project.

Lastly, be sure to follow up with the attendees to make sure all the stakeholders are on the same page and aligned to support the project.

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How To Write the Perfect Business Case

How to write a business case

Why do too many projects fail to deliver their objectives even though project management best practices appear to be used? Project management is naturally complicated, but it can be disastrous if you don’t have sufficient buy-in from the right parties. Writing a strong and complete business case can make all the difference.

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In this how-to guide you will discover,

  • What is a business case?

Why you need a business case

  • Is the project worth doing?

When to use a business case

How to write a business case, the business case template, a business case example, 1. the executive summary, 2. the finance section, 3. the project definition, 4. project organization, managing the business case, making the case, frequently asked questions, what is a business case.

A business case is developed during the early stages of a project and outlines the why, what, how, and who necessary to decide if it is worthwhile continuing a project. One of the first things you need to know when starting a new project are the benefits of the proposed business change and how to communicate those benefits to the business.

While the project proposal focuses on why you want a project, it will only contain an outline of the project:

  • business vision
  • business need
  • expected benefits
  • strategic fit
  • products produced
  • broad estimates of time and cost
  • and impact on the organization

In contrast, the business case, which is first developed during the project initiation phase , contains much more detail. It should be reviewed by the project sponsor and key stakeholders before being accepted, rejected, canceled, deferred, or revised.

Depending on the scale of the business change, the business case may need further development as part of a detailed investigation. Therefore, it should be developed incrementally so that time and resources aren’t unnecessarily wasted on the impractical.

Preparing the business case involves an assessment of:

  • Business problem or opportunity
  • Costs including investment appraisal
  • Technical solutions
  • Impact on operations
  • Organizational capability to deliver the project outcomes

These project issues are an important part of the business case. They express the problems with the current situation and demonstrate the benefits of the new business vision.

The business case brings together the benefits, disadvantages, costs , and risks of the current situation and future vision so that executive management can decide if the project should go ahead.

Many projects start life as a walk in the fog, which is fine in itself, but never see the light of day or stumble along aimlessly for too long because the clarity of scope , time-scale, cost, and benefits are not defined adequately during the first stages of the project.

Is the project worth doing

Why are you starting a project? Chances are you’re doing it because you need to solve a problem.

Usually, the problem is something that gets in the way of achieving your goals . So, it seems a project is about achieving goals and your goals won’t be realized unless you deal with the problem (or opportunity or circumstance.)

If a project is worth doing you need to answer 4 simple questions:

  • What is your goal?
  • What’s stopping you from reaching the goal?
  • How much change is needed to overcome the problem?
  • Are you certain this will solve the problem?

Can you answer these questions quickly? Do you have evidence to support or refute your assumptions?

If not, it may not be worth starting a project.

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The business case is needed when resources or expenditure on a project has to be justified. Approval is usually sought from the project sponsor and other interested parties. For instance, the finance function may authorize funds and the IT department provide resources.

The purpose of the business case is communication. Therefore, each section should be written in the parlance of the intended audience.

Moreover, it should only contain enough information to help decision making. When writing a business case keep the following in mind:

  • Be brief and convey only the essentials.
  • Make it interesting, clear, and concise.
  • Eliminate conjecture and minimize jargon.
  • Describe your vision of the future.
  • Demonstrate the value and benefits the project brings to the business.
  • Ensure consistent style and readability.

The project sponsor is responsible for preparing the business case. However, all appropriate team members should contribute to its development. Likewise, subject matter experts from other functions ― finance, HR, IT, service delivery, and so on ― can provide specialist information.

Those writing the business case should have a thorough understanding of the project’s aims and be able to merge the varied and potentially complex plans into one document using the following business case template.

What follows are the four steps to writing a business case template for your project. It includes the following four sections:

  • Executive Summary
  • Project Definition
  • Project Organization

This example of a business case is a simplified version for a small company with few staff. The bigger the project, the bigger the risk, which means the more detail you will need to provide for your investors and stakeholders.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

In 2021, retail e-Commerce revenue reached 768 billion US dollars. People are expecting more digital experiences and want to interact and purchase what they need online.

Our current website is just a static page with no interaction available to possible customers. With a website upgrade to incorporate an e-Commerce store, we can entice users to purchase all their training online, in return increasing productivity and efficiency within the office. An estimated $25,000 could be saved a year through this upgrade.

1.1 Financial Appraisal

The expected cost of the new website is $15,000 with a $500 annual maintenance fee.

The training costs of the staff is estimated at $2,000, but the reduction of administration and manual handling of orders is estimated to save $25,000 annually.

1.2 Sensitivity Analysis

The alternatives include:

  • Maintaining the current system, which costs $25,000 annually to maintain and run.
  • Upgrading the website, but not including an e-Commerce store. This would cost $6,000, but the cost of processing the orders is still $25,000.
  • Outsourcing the training purchases to a third-party site, which would cost between $49.99 - $100 per month. In the long run this would cost more and offer less development scope.

2. PROJECT DEFINITION

2.1 Background information

The World is digitizing and we, as a business, must keep up with consumer demand if we are to remain one of the most sought-after training providers.

Since 2020 and the outbreak of Covid-19, many more people have been working remotely and wish to access their training requirements online. We need to update our systems to provide our customers with a purely online system that can provide them with their required training courses in a virtual environment, from purchase through to attendance. This new e-Commerce website is the first step in this process.

2.2 Business Objective

The goal is to provide an online platform where customers can purchase their training requirements.

The solution is to build an e-Commerce website.

This syncs with the business strategy, as it will increase efficiency and profits.

2.3 Benefits and Limitations

The benefits of this project far out-weigh the negatives. They include:

  • Improvement in the quality of customer service and user journey
  • Increased conversion rate through streamlined processes
  • Cost savings through efficiencies
  • Reduced working capital
  • Increase in revenue generated
  • Remain competitive in a digital world.

The limitations of this project remain with staffing, as we do not have a web designer or developer within our company, meaning this will still have to be outsourced if anything arises at a future date.

2.4 Option Identification & Selection

Options for the e-Commerce site include the following:

  • WordPress website with WooCommerce store
  • All-in-one website hosted on e-Commerce platform such as Shopify
  • Use of third-party payment system, such as Stripe, PayPal, or Worldpay
  • Ability to take payments directly through the website and acting as controller and processor of user’s sensitive data
  • Inclusion of a blog
  • Integration of CRM platform.

2.5 Scope, Impact, and interdependencies

The website will be built independently from the current site, so will not affect any current processes or user experience.

2.6 Outline Plan

The website will be built by an external agency and will take around 6 months to complete and push live.

One month before going live the staff will undertake essential training.

2.7 Market Assessment

Since retail e-Commerce has risen to $768 billion US Dollars, it’s time we also made the move to online sales.

2.8 Risk Assessment

The project will be completed out of house.

2.9 Project Approach

The project will be managed out of house.

2.10 Purchasing Strategy

We will enter a contractual agreement with the creative agency. Attached is a copy of the proposed contract.

3. PROJECT ORGANIZATION

3.1 Project Governance

Project will be managed by the agency and in-house by the Centre Executive.

3.2 Progress Reporting

The agency will report to the Centre Executive.

Depending on the length of the business case you may want to include a high-level summary of the project.

The executive summary is the first section of the business case and the last written. It is a short summary of the entire business case. It succinctly conveys vital information about the project and communicates the entire story to the reader.

First impressions are important. Get this right!

The finance section of an effective business case is primarily for those who approve funding. The finance function will be interested in this plus the first half of the project definition.

Financial appraisal.

When you prepare the financial appraisal seek advice on content and presentation from the finance function. In the case of capital developments, consult subject matter experts.

The purpose of a financial appraisal is to:

  • Identify the financial implications for the project
  • Compare project costs against the forecast benefits
  • Ensure the project is affordable
  • Assess value for money
  • Predict cash flow.

Sensitivity analysis.

Sensitivity analysis concerns project risk and looks at alternative futures by measuring the impact on project outcomes or assumptions of changing values in which there is uncertainty.

In effect, sensitivity analysis lets the project accountant experiment with possible scenarios.

This is the largest part of the business case and is for the project sponsor, stakeholders, and project team. It answers most of the why, what, and how questions about your project.

Background information.

The purpose of this section is to give a clear introduction to the business case and project. It should contain a brief overview of the reasons why the project or business change has come about: the problem, opportunity, or change of circumstances.

If necessary, refer to related programs, projects, studies, or business plans.

Business objective.

This part describes why you are doing the project. The business objective answers the following questions:

  • What is needed to overcome the problem?
  • How will the project support the business strategy?

Benefits and limitations.

The benefits and limitations section describes the financial and non-financial benefits in turn. The purpose is to explain why you need a project.

For instance, to:

  • Improve quality
  • Save costs through efficiencies
  • Reduce working capital
  • Generate revenue
  • Remain competitive
  • Improve customer service
  • Align to corporate strategy

The business case should also include any limitations since these present potential risk to the project.

Option identification and selection.

Identify the potential solutions to the problem and describe them in enough detail for the reader to understand.

For instance, if the business case and proposed solution makes use of technology, make sure to explain how the technology is used and define the terms used in a glossary. Since most problems have multiple solutions an option appraisal is often needed. This will explore the potential solutions and recommend the best option.

When writing the initial business case, the option appraisal is likely to contain a long list of options and will cover many possibilities. As the project continues a few options will be rejected. The final business case may contain three to five options ― the short list ― that includes a do nothing or benchmark option.

Scope, impact, and interdependencies.

This section of the business case template describes the work needed to deliver the business objective and identifies those business functions affected by the project.

Moreover, the project scope, impact, and interdependencies section should state the project’s scope and boundaries. It describes what is included and what is excluded plus the key interdependencies with other projects. It is important for the business case to consider the failure of other interrelated projects and show how such dependencies make impact benefits.

Outline plan.

The outline plan provides a summary of the main activities and overall timescale ― project schedule ― for the project.

A project should be divided into stages with the decisions to make preceding each stage. Use this section to answer the following questions:

  • What is required?
  • How is it done?
  • Who does what?
  • When will things happen?

This outline plan lists the major deliverables and includes a brief project description plus accountabilities for each activity.

Market assessment.

It is important that the business case provides its readers with a thorough assessment of the business context ― the market assessment. In other words, make the underlying business interests explicit.

Therefore, the market assessment should show a complete understanding of the marketplace in which your business operates.

A good starting point is the inclusions of a PESTLE ― political, economic, sociological, technological, legal, and environmental ― analysis.

Risk assessment.

The risk assessment summarizes the significant project risks and opportunities and how they are managed. Include any risks that could arise from your project, as well as the organization’s ability to deliver change.

This section answers the following questions:

  • What risks are involved?
  • What are the consequences of a risk happening?
  • What opportunities may emerge?
  • What plans are in place to deal with the risks?
  • Every project should include a risk log

When writing a business case, make sure this is included as it explains how risk and opportunity are managed.

Project approach.

The project approach describes how the project is tackled. That is, the way in which work is done to deliver the project.

For instance, a project with much of the work contracted out is likely to take a different approach to a project that develops an in-house solution.

Purchasing strategy.

This section describes how a project is to be financed and whether a decision to buy, lease, or outsource should be taken by the organization before purchasing.

Moreover, the purchasing strategy should describe the purchasing process used. A formal procurement process may save time and money and reduce project risk.

The last section of the business case template is of most interest to the project manager, project team, and managers responsible for delivering work to the project. This project organization section describes how the project is set up.

Project governance.

This section of the business case template shows the reader how the project is structured and the different levels of decision-making. Usually, a business will already have implemented a project governance framework that will support the project through each stage.

If your organization does not use a structured project management process framework use this section to include:

  • Roles and responsibilities (RACI Chart)
  • Project tolerances
  • Project standards
  • Review points
  • How decisions are made.

Progress reporting.

Finally, the business case should define how project progress is recorded and the project board updated on project performance. Usually, the project manager does this by preparing a concise progress report or highlight report at regular intervals.

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The completed business case provides structure for the project and project organization throughout the project lifecycle . Therefore, it should be used routinely for reference and not consigned to the shelf.

Accordingly, the project sponsor and project board should review and update the business case at key stages to check that the project remains viable and the reasons for doing it are still valid. Ideally, the review should take place before starting a new stage to avoid unnecessary investment in time and money.

In this article we showed you how to write a business case. We covered a lot of ground and may give the impression that the resulting business case is a large and unwieldy document.

This is not the case.

A business case should be concise and to the point. For small projects it may run to a few pages. For larger projects and complex business change endeavors the document will be large.

Therefore, be sure to keep the intended audience in mind when preparing each section and include supporting information in an appendix.

For instance, the option appraisal section may summarize each option with the details contained elsewhere for reference.

To conclude, the purpose of a business case is to outline the business rationale for undertaking a project and to provide a means to continually assess and evaluate project progress.

What is the difference between a business case and a business plan?

The focus of the business case is an action, which is usually the purchase of capital equipment or a service. In comparison, the focus of the business plan is to outline the future of a business proposal, it’s margins, revenue growth over several years and what the business goals and strategies will encompass.

What should be included in a business case?

Writing a business case can seem like a daunting task, which is why we have provided you with a business case template and example to help you make a start.

The four sections include:

What is a business case template?

A business case template provides you with a structure and format to present your case to relevant stakeholders and investors. It’s essential that this document communicate the essence of your project’s goals and benefits, while aligning with the company’s strategies and objectives.

What Should Your Business Case Analysis Do?

June 5, 2019

by Grace Pinegar

business case analysis about

I analyze everything.

From the clothes I put on in the morning, to why my sister hasn’t texted me back about an important question: I’m always asking myself “why.”

And as someone making the case for a project’s relevance, impact, and importance, you will have to constantly ask yourself “why” as well.

What is a business case analysis?

A business case analysis (BCA) is another way of referring to a business case , which we’ve discussed previously. To clarify: a business case and a business case analysis are two ways of referring to the same thing.

To recap: it is a type of documentation created at the beginning of a project life cycle. In a business case analysis, a project manager (PM) outlines various elements such as what business problem they are trying to solve, as well as cost, risk, benefits, and scope. 

Business Case Analysis

This document serves as both an introduction and an explanation. It is a stakeholder’s first time hearing about the project, but it should also provide strong enough reasoning to justify the resources that project will require.

What should a business case analysis do?

If you want to read what all is included in a business case, you can check out my original article above. In this reading, let’s chat a bit about what you want your business case analysis to accomplish.

1. Serve as a reference point

Project team members all benefit from having something to look back on and reference. If there’s any confusion as to what the project aims to accomplish, or which approach the team decided on, the business case analysis is a great reference point for all of that information.

2. Provide multiple approaches

Part of the purpose of submitting a business case is providing stakeholders with multiple solutions to one business problem. The business case should list more than one solution, but it should highlight which solution the project manager and/or decision-making team feels is best.

3. Justify the expense of resources

If a project has a million dollar price tag, you’re not likely to get that approved without a clear explanation as to what problem it will solve, or how it will increase profits. A business case is just that: your chance to make a case for a project that you believe will benefit the company more than it’ll cost. 

You should have clear, concrete proof that your statements are true and that you’ve done the necessary research to arrive at your conclusion. A business case should only be full of bold statements if you can back them up with facts.

4. Act as a living, changing document

One good thing about a business case analysis is it can change over time. As an organization changes, so will certain project parameters, team structures, budgetary data, and more. To maintain this document as a point of reference, make sure you update it as time goes on. 

Make sure you’re transparent about those changes with the rest of the company, or whoever is working on the project with you. It would be counter-intuitive to use the business case as a reference guide without informing your colleagues as to when it has been updated.

5. Help determine project success

A business case analysis is vital in determining project success , because it clearly outlines what a project set out to accomplish in the first place. If you’re trying to judge whether a project did what it was supposed to do, go back to the beginning.

Use your business case analysis to help determine if the project lived up to its expectations and requirements. In short: did you accomplish what you promised stakeholders you would accomplish with the time and budget you promised to do it with?

Don’t over-analyze

It’s important that a business case accomplishes all of the above, but chances are, you’re a skilled project manager who will include all of these things naturally. This guide is a helpful reminder that a good business case analysis is utilized far beyond the initial stages of a project. 

Want to discover whether a certain project is a good idea right now? Learn how to conduct a feasibility study .

Grace Pinegar photo

Grace Pinegar is a lifelong storyteller with an extensive background in various forms such as acting, journalism, improv, research, and content marketing. She was raised in Texas, educated in Missouri, worked in Chicago, and is now a proud New Yorker. (she/her/hers)

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How to Write a Business Case (+ Template & Examples)

How to Write a Business Case Template Examples

What is a Business Case?

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A business case is a document that outlines a proposed project or initiative, detailing the problem it aims to solve, its benefits and costs, and an implementation plan. A well-written business case can help secure support and funding for a project and ensure its success by providing a clear roadmap.

In this guide, we will explore a business case's key concepts and components, provide tips for writing and presenting a business case, and offer examples and templates to help you create your own.

A business case is a written document that outlines a proposed project, initiative, or solution. It provides a clear and concise description of the problem the project aims to solve, the benefits of the solution and a plan for implementation.

The purpose of a business case is to gain support and funding for a project and to provide a clear roadmap for implementation. It is a tool used to make informed decisions about projects and initiatives, and to ensure their success.

A well-written business case should include the following components:

A clear description of the problem the project aims to solve. The problem statement should be specific and concise and provide enough context for stakeholders to understand the need for the project.

The goals and specific requirements of the project. This section should clearly outline what the project hopes to achieve and what specific outcomes are expected.

An examination of different options for solving the problem and the pros and cons of each. This section should provide an overview of the different approaches that could be taken and the advantages and disadvantages of each.

A recommended solution and plan for implementation. This section should provide a clear and concise explanation of the recommended approach, including a timeline and specific steps for implementation.

An estimate of the costs and benefits of the project, including revenue and expenses, and a projection of the return on investment. This section should provide a detailed analysis of the financial impact of the project and should include a clear explanation of the methodology used to estimate costs and benefits.

Metrics used to measure the success of the project. This section should outline specific, measurable KPIs that can be used to track progress and determine if the project is meeting its objectives.

An evaluation of potential risks and a plan for managing them. This section should identify potential risks associated with the project, assess their likelihood and impact, and outline a plan for mitigating or avoiding those risks.

An assessment of the interests and influence of stakeholders and their impact on the project. This section should identify key stakeholders and assess their level of influence, interests and objectives, and how they may impact the project.

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Writing a business case can seem overwhelming, but it can be a manageable task with a clear understanding of the components and a structured approach. Here are some tips for writing a successful business case:

Begin by clearly defining the problem the project aims to solve. This will help you focus your efforts and ensure that the business case is relevant and compelling.

Outline the specific objectives and requirements of the project. This will help you focus your efforts and ensure that the solution meets the needs of stakeholders.

Examine different options for solving the problem, and assess the pros and cons of each. This will help you determine the best approach and make a convincing argument for your recommendation.

Create a detailed plan for implementation that includes a timeline, specific steps, and a budget. This will help ensure that the project stays on track and is completed successfully.

Conduct a thorough financial analysis and estimate the costs and benefits of the project. This will help you make a convincing argument for your recommendation and secure support from stakeholders.

Identify potential risks associated with the project and develop a plan for mitigating or avoiding those risks. This will help you anticipate and manage potential challenges and ensure the success of the project.

Engage stakeholders throughout the process, seeking their input and feedback, and ensuring their interests and objectives are considered. This will help you build support for the project and ensure its success.

A business case example can provide a better understanding of how to write a business case and what it should contain. The following are several examples of business cases across different industries and situations:

  • Technology Upgrade Business Case: In this case, a company is looking to upgrade its technology infrastructure. The business case should include the current technology limitations, the benefits of the new technology, the costs associated with the upgrade, and a timeline for implementation.
  • New Product Launch Business Case: A company is looking to launch a new product, and the business case should include market research, a product description, target audience, costs, potential sales, and a plan for marketing and distribution.
  • Merger and Acquisition Business Case: In this case, a company is proposing to merge with or acquire another company. The business case should include financial data for both companies, the reasons for the merger/acquisition, and a plan for integrating the two companies.
  • Cost-saving Initiative Business Case: A company is proposing a cost-saving initiative, such as reducing the number of employees, to improve its bottom line. The business case should include the reasons for the initiative, a cost-benefit analysis, and a plan for implementation and monitoring.
  • Green Initiative Business Case: A company is proposing a green initiative to improve its environmental impact, such as reducing carbon emissions. The business case should include the reasons for the initiative, the benefits to the environment and the company, a cost-benefit analysis, and a plan for implementation and monitoring.

These examples provide a general understanding of the types of information that should be included in a business case. The actual content of the business case will depend on the specific situation and the organization's goals.

Top Free Excel Business Budget Templates Business Case Excel Template

A business case template can be a helpful tool for creating your own business case. The template should include the key components of a business case, including the problem statement, objectives and requirements, alternatives analysis, recommendations and implementation plan, financial analysis and projections, KPIs, risk assessment, and stakeholder analysis.

When using a business case template, it's important to customize it to your specific situation and ensure that all relevant information is included. The template should be used as a guide, not a rigid structure, and you should modify it as needed to best represent your project.

We understand the importance of having a well-structured business case to support informed decision-making, which is why we are offering a free business case template users to download and get started with.

  • Business Case Excel template
  • Business Case Google Sheets template

This template is designed to help you create a comprehensive and effective business case that covers all the key components, including an executive summary, problem statement, goals and objectives, alternatives, financial analysis, risk assessment, and conclusion. All you have to do is download the template, fill in the details, and you'll have a professional-looking business case in no time.

With this template, you can focus on the content of your business case and leave the formatting and structure to us.

Presenting a business case is an important step in securing support and approval for your project. Here are some tips for presenting a successful business case:

Be clear and concise in your presentation, focusing on the key information that stakeholders need to know. Avoid using technical jargon or industry-specific terminology; instead, use language that is easy to understand and accessible to all stakeholders.

Highlight the benefits of the project and the potential impact on the organization and stakeholders. Be specific and quantifiable, if possible, and provide clear evidence of the benefits.

Anticipate potential concerns and objections that stakeholders may have and be prepared to address them. Be proactive in addressing potential challenges and provide clear, concise answers that address stakeholder concerns.

Use visual aids, such as slides, diagrams, and charts, to support your presentation and make your points more impactful. Keep visual aids focused and straightforward, and avoid overloading them with information.

Practice your presentation and be prepared to answer questions and provide additional information as needed. Be confident and knowledgeable, and be willing to adapt your presentation as required based on stakeholder feedback.

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A business case analysis is a process of evaluating a business case and determining if it is viable and likely to achieve its intended goals. The analysis should consider all aspects of the business case, including the problem statement, objectives and requirements, alternatives analysis, recommendations and implementation plan, financial analysis and projections, KPIs, risk assessment, and stakeholder analysis.

The purpose of the business case analysis is to provide a comprehensive and objective assessment of the business case and to identify any potential risks or areas for improvement. The study should be based on data and evidence and consider the feasibility and viability of the project from a technical, financial, and organizational perspective.

A business case analysis is a critical step in the business case process as it helps evaluate a proposed initiative's feasibility and viability. The following are several examples of business case analysis:

  • Cost-Benefit Analysis: A cost-benefit analysis is a common type of business case analysis that compares the costs of an initiative with the benefits it is expected to provide. The analysis should take into account both the direct and indirect costs and benefits.
  • Break-Even Analysis: A break-even analysis is a type of financial analysis that calculates the point at which an initiative will start to generate a profit. This analysis is vital for initiatives that have significant upfront costs.
  • Risk Analysis: A risk analysis evaluates the potential risks associated with an initiative and the impact they may have on the success of the initiative. The analysis should identify the likelihood of each risk occurring and the impact it may have.
  • Feasibility Analysis: A feasibility analysis evaluates the technical, operational, and economic feasibility of an initiative. The analysis should consider the resources required, the timeline, and the impact on the organization.
  • Market Analysis: A market analysis evaluates the demand for a product or service and the competition. The analysis should consider the target audience, market trends, and the strengths and weaknesses of the competition.

These examples provide a general understanding of the types of analysis that can be performed as part of a business case. The actual analysis performed will depend on the specific situation and the goals of the organization. The analysis results should be used to make informed decisions and evaluate the initiative's success.

Project management is an essential aspect of a successful business case. Effective project management helps ensure that the project stays on track, that resources are used effectively, and that the project meets its intended goals and objectives.

Here are a few best practices for business case project management:

  • Define clear project objectives and goals: Ensure that all stakeholders are aligned and understand what is expected.
  • Establish a project team: Establish a team with the necessary skills, knowledge, and expertise to execute the project successfully.
  • Develop a detailed project plan: Including a timeline, budget, and resource allocation plan. The project plan should be flexible and updated regularly to reflect changing circumstances.
  • Monitor and control project progress: Ensure that it stays on track and meets its intended goals. Regularly review the project plan and make adjustments as needed.
  • Communicate regularly with stakeholders: Ensure that they are informed and aware of project progress, and to address any concerns or objections they may have.
  • Continuously evaluate and improve the project: Make changes as needed to ensure that it stays on track and achieves its intended goals.

A well-written and thorough business case is essential for making informed decisions and achieving organizational goals. The following are several best practices for creating a successful business case:

  • Clearly Define Objectives: The initiative's objectives should be clearly defined and aligned with the organization's goals. This will ensure that the initiative is focused and that the results are meaningful.
  • Gather Relevant Data: The business case should be based on accurate and relevant data. This includes financial data, market data, and data on the current situation.
  • Use a Structured Format: A structured format, such as the business case template, will help to ensure that all necessary information is included and that the business case is organized and easy to understand.
  • Consider Alternatives: The business case should consider alternative solutions to the problem or opportunity being addressed. This will help to ensure that the best solution is selected.
  • Include a Risk Assessment: A risk assessment should be included in the business case to identify and evaluate the potential risks associated with the initiative. This will help to ensure that the risks are managed effectively.
  • Involve Stakeholders: Stakeholders should be involved in the business case process to ensure that all perspectives are considered and that the initiative is supported.
  • Continuously Monitor Progress: The business case should include a plan for monitoring the initiative's progress. This will help to ensure that the initiative stays on track and that any necessary adjustments can be made.
  • Update Regularly: The business case should be updated regularly to reflect changes in the situation or the initiative. This will help to ensure that the business case remains relevant and valuable.

By following these best practices, organizations can create effective business cases that support informed decision-making and achieve their goals.

In conclusion, a well-prepared business case is essential for securing support and approval for your project. By following these best practices and guidelines, you can develop a strong and compelling business case to help you achieve your goals and succeed in your endeavors.

  • Problem Statement: A clear description of the problem that the project aims to solve.
  • Objectives and Requirements: The goals and specific requirements of the project.
  • Alternatives Analysis: An examination of different options for solving the problem and the pros and cons of each.
  • Recommendations and Implementation Plan: A recommended solution and plan for implementation.
  • Financial Analysis and Projections: An estimate of the costs and benefits of the project, including revenue and expenses, and a projection of the return on investment.
  • Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): Metrics used to measure the project's success.
  • Risk Assessment: An evaluation of potential risks and a plan for managing them.
  • Stakeholder Analysis: An assessment of the interests and influence of stakeholders and their impact on the project.

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How to Write a Case Study Analysis

Step-By-Step Instructions

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When writing a business case study analysis , you must first have a good understanding of the case study . Before you begin the steps below, read the business case carefully, taking notes all the while. It may be necessary to read the case several times to get all of the details and fully grasp the issues facing the group, company, or industry.

As you are reading, do your best to identify key issues, key players, and the most pertinent facts. After you are comfortable with the information, use the following step-by-step instructions (geared toward a single-company analysis) to write your report. To write about an industry, just adapt the steps listed here to discuss the segment as a whole.

Step 1: Investigate the Company’s History and Growth

A company’s past can greatly affect the present and future state of the organization. To begin, investigate the company’s founding, critical incidents, structure, and growth. Create a timeline of events, issues, and achievements. This timeline will come in handy for the next step. 

Step 2: Identify Strengths and Weaknesses

Using the information you gathered in step one, continue by examining and making a list of the value creation functions of the company. For example, the company may be weak in product development but strong in marketing. Make a list of problems that have occurred and note the effects they have had on the company. You should also list areas where the company has excelled. Note the effects of these incidents as well.

You're essentially conducting a partial SWOT analysis to get a better understanding of the company's strengths and weaknesses. A SWOT analysis involves documenting things like internal strengths (S) and weaknesses (W) and external opportunities (O) and threats (T). 

Step 3: Examine the External Environment

The third step involves identifying opportunities and threats within the company’s external environment. This is where the second part of the SWOT analysis (the O and the T) comes into play. Special items to note include competition within the industry, bargaining powers, and the threat of substitute products. Some examples of opportunities include expansion into new markets or new technology. Some examples of threats include increasing competition and higher interest rates.

Step 4: Analyze Your Findings

Using the information in steps 2 and 3, create an evaluation for this portion of your case study analysis. Compare the strengths and weaknesses within the company to the external threats and opportunities. Determine if the company is in a strong competitive position, and decide if it can continue at its current pace successfully.

Step 5: Identify Corporate-Level Strategy

To identify a company’s corporate-level strategy, identify and evaluate the company’s mission , goals, and actions toward those goals. Analyze the company’s line of business and its subsidiaries and acquisitions. You also want to debate the pros and cons of the company strategy to determine whether or not a change might benefit the company in the short or long term.​

Step 6: Identify Business-Level Strategy

Thus far, your case study analysis has identified the company’s corporate-level strategy. To perform a complete analysis, you will need to identify the company’s business-level strategy. (Note: If it is a single business, without multiple companies under one umbrella, and not an industry-wide review, the corporate strategy and the business-level strategy are the same.) For this part, you should identify and analyze each company’s competitive strategy, marketing strategy, costs, and general focus.

Step 7: Analyze Implementations

This portion requires that you identify and analyze the structure and control systems that the company is using to implement its business strategies. Evaluate organizational change, levels of hierarchy, employee rewards, conflicts, and other issues that are important to the company you are analyzing.

Step 8: Make Recommendations

The final part of your case study analysis should include your recommendations for the company. Every recommendation you make should be based on and supported by the context of your analysis. Never share hunches or make a baseless recommendation.

You also want to make sure that your suggested solutions are actually realistic. If the solutions cannot be implemented due to some sort of restraint, they are not realistic enough to make the final cut.

Finally, consider some of the alternative solutions that you considered and rejected. Write down the reasons why these solutions were rejected. 

Step 9: Review

Look over your analysis when you have finished writing. Critique your work to make sure every step has been covered. Look for grammatical errors , poor sentence structure, or other things that can be improved. It should be clear, accurate, and professional.

Business Case Study Analysis Tips

Keep these strategic tips in mind:

  • Know the case study ​backward and forward before you begin your case study analysis.
  • Give yourself enough time to write the case study analysis. You don't want to rush through it.
  • Be honest in your evaluations. Don't let personal issues and opinions cloud your judgment.
  • Be analytical, not descriptive.
  • Proofread your work, and even let a test reader give it a once-over for dropped words or typos that you no longer can see.
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business case analysis about

Once you have identified a case study that you wish to analyze, the sources listed below can help you analyze the case materials.

  • Cengage Learning - Case Studies Explains how to effectively analyze cases and write a case study analysis. Provides a checklist and explanation of areas to consider, suggested research tools, and tips on financial analysis.
  • Guide to case analysis From the publisher McGraw Hill. Includes sections on objectives of case analysis, preparing a case for class discussion, preparing a written case analysis and the Ten Commandments of Case Analysis.
  • How to Analyze a Case Study From the Simmons University Writing Center.
  • Writing a Case Analysis From the University of New South Wales Business School.
  • Writing a Case Study Analysis From The University of Arizona, Global Campus, Writing Center.

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Business Case Analysis: Structure, Format, & Examples

When you master management processes, it’s vital to apply your knowledge to real issues. Business case analysis lets you navigate business theory in real life.

Business case analysis is a common assignment in business education. It is a study of some business aspect with the further suggestion of solutions. Read this page to find all the information you need. Our experts will teach you how to conduct a case analysis on each level. You will also find various case study examples for students and much more.

  • 💼 Case Study Analysis Explained
  • ✍️ How to Write a Case Analysis
  • 🧠 Analyzing a Case Study
  • 📝 Business Case Analysis Format
  • 📈 Helpful Tips for Students

🍟 Business Case Analysis Example

  • 🤓 Case Analysis Samples

💼 Case Study Analysis Definition

Let’s start with a clear explanation of a business case analysis.

What Is a Case Analysis?

A case analysis is a decision-making tool for achieving a higher efficiency level. This instrument helps estimate all the costs, risks, and benefits. A case analysis in business investigates a business problem providing possible solutions and recommendations. A business case analysis should include statistics, literature support, and other data.

For example, you consider whether to open a company’s new office. You need to assess costs, benefits, and other factors connected to opening a new department. After evaluating these indicators, it is possible to make a rational decision.

Here are the main functions of case analysis:

✍️ Business Case Analysis Writing Guide – 3 Steps

Companies use case analysis to evaluate various factors, strategies, and indexes.

We are going to discuss this process to define each step. Case analysis consists of three stages: preparation, case outline, and completion of the investigation.

Stay with us if you want to study the most exciting cases, such as Starbucks or Netflix.

The picture depicts 3 steps of a business case analysis.

  • Introduction . You should provide a brief description of the case. Your audience wants to know the subject’s background and essential details.
  • Problem definition. To tackle a problem, one should see it inside out. That’s why you should thoroughly define and describe the issue.
  • Predictions. Finally, it’s vital to introduce possible solutions, methods, and outcomes in this part.
  • Choose the range of problems. Dive deeper into its essence. Provide a detailed description.
  • Show the relation of a problem to the business situation in question. It’s vital to evaluate the issue and mark its origins.
  • Brainstorm realistic decisions. What can improve the situation in general? You should also answer the question, “What changes will it bring to the case?”
  • Summarize the points you revealed in your study.
  • Draw the most significant implications of the conducted work.
  • Finally, highlight the importance of the analysis and solutions for the business.

🧠 Business Case Analysis: How to Analyze

Observing the case study analysis structure is a great way to learn how to write a case analysis. Let’s look at the Netflix case analysis outline example.

  • The usual work format of Netflix gets outdated and doesn’t bring enough success.
  • So we need to look for breakthrough decisions that would become a game-changer.
  • Why did the old Netflix model become outdated?
  • What were the market changes that demanded the company changes?
  • Development of online media.
  • Urge to adjust to modern realities.
  • The company’s purpose is to provide quality content.
  • Transformation of Netflix into a streaming service.
  • Meeting the demands of various groups.
  • Advertising campaigns.

📝 Business Case Analysis Format & Structure

In this part, we will discuss the format of a case analysis. Like any writing task, there are several vital parts that you need to include. Below is a general structure applicable to any case analysis.

Executive Summary

  • The executive summary should describe the issues of a business or a project and the current situation. At this point, you can include only essential details.
  • The executive summary includes introductory, body, and concluding parts.
  • Be brief but mention the goals and field of the research.
  • Define the sources of information you will use in a study.
  • A precious tip. While creating your executive summary, mind the question: “How much does my audience already know, and how much do I need to explain?”

Introduction

  • Unlike the summary, the introduction is not an overview. It is the part where you start getting into the details of the study. Here, you provide the context and objectives for the research.
  • You should put up a hypothesis about the origin and background of the problem.
  • A precious tip. While making a hypothesis about the problem, answer the question: “Why did it appear?” and suggest your most brilliant solution to it.
  • The section where you describe methodology is optional.
  • If you choose a solution to multiple problems in your study, you should mention the methods. Tell about the approaches you used to analyze the possible results of the decision.
  • A precious tip. It can happen that you weren’t thinking about any methodology while making a study. In that case, search for different case analysis methods after you finish your work. Look through those and check out whether you used any of them.

Solutions & Assumptions

  • Probably, the most practical part of your case study. The core of the analysis begins here.
  • Provide various solutions to the analyzed issues to apply the most realistic ones. Placing them in order of significance will make this section easier to perceive.
  • A precious tip. Try to think out of the box and brainstorm viable findings. Your professor will appreciate your approach, and you will train the skill of creative thinking.

Recommendations

  • Since you’ve already made several good decisions, you probably marked the most notable one.
  • It’s high time to propose a strategy to improve business.
  • Justify your choice of solutions and describe the steps of using it
  • A precious tip. Share other solutions to less significant business problems. That will enrich your analysis making it more complete.
  • The goal of a conclusion is not just to sum up your research ideas . It’s meant to show the perspectives for further research and development.
  • In most cases, one or two concluding paragraphs will be sufficient for a case study. Sometimes it may require more.
  • A conclusion is your chance to make the last impression. You can show that your research is valuable for the field. Use it wisely.

References & Appendices

  • If you used external sources of information in your study, make sure you provide references to them. You can use such citation styles as MLA, APA, or Harvard.
  • If you have any other data to share, frame it up in the “Appendices” section. This is the place for vital information that may interrupt the body of a paper. That is why you place it in a special section.

📈 Case Study Tips & Tricks for Students

1. Conduct pre-research. Read the information about the case and make notes while reading. 2. Focus on the search for business problems and mark as many as you can spot. It will create the whole picture of the case in your mind. 3. Brainstorm possible solutions to each problem in the question. You will choose the best ones. 4. Give a brief description of the company in the executive summary. 5. Enumerate the issues that you have chosen for further discussion. You should also mention the reasons. Why did these problems appear? 6. Choose the theoretical base that you will rely upon in your study. 7. Read some examples of case study analyses. For instance, go through our Netflix case study. 8. When you suggest solutions, provide solid proof that they are realistic and possible. 9. Don’t forget to describe the possible results of the changes that your solutions will bring. 10. Revise your paper carefully and get rid of logical errors. Look at your study with a critical eye.

We have prepared a McDonald’s business case analysis example for you to see how everything works in practice!

McDonald’s Business Case Analysis: Supply Chain Issues Due to COVID-19

🤓 examples of case analysis for students.

Now, to make you fully equipped and ready, we have a unique tool for you. In the section below, you’ll find plenty of case analysis examples . Here are businesses and companies to any taste. We have got Starbucks, Netflix, and Tesla case study analyses, and many others.

Let’s get it!

Starbucks Case Study

Who doesn’t know Starbucks? This company, though, has examples of falls and raises:

  • Starbucks Corporation’s Organizational Social Responsibility
  • Comparative Analysis Second Cup and Starbucks Coffee Company
  • Starbucks as a Corporation Explorer
  • Starbucks: Profitable Growth After Financial Difficulties

Netflix Case Study

Another colossal company on our list is Netflix, with its incredible story of success:

  • Netflix on the Global Market
  • Netflix Company’s Performance and Strategic Audit
  • Netflix Inc.’s Strategic Audit for 2019-2020
  • Netflix Inc.’s Business Strategy and Strategic Analysis
  • Netflix Case Study: Strategic Management, Organizational Change, & More

Tesla Case Study

Tesla is something new, but its development process is rapid. It’s worth analyzing:

  • Tesla: Corporate Social Responsibility
  • Tesla Inc.’s Quantitative Analysis
  • Automotive Industry and Tesla, Inc.
  • Business Analysis of Company Tesla, Organization Save a Rescue, and Restaurant Eleven Madison Park
  • Tesla’s Corporate Governance Overview

Amazon Case Study

Here’s a great temple of Amazon case study analyses to get acquainted with its story:

  • Amazon Inc.: Company Analysis
  • Amazon Web Services: Analysis
  • Amazon Company: Internal & External Analysis
  • Industry Innovation Report: Amazon
  • Amazon Strategic Audit Report
  • Amazon Case Study: Supply Chain, Fire Phone Failure, and More

Airbnb Case Study

Learn about the business decisions that the Airbnb team has been making throughout the company’s history:

  • Airbnb Company: Marketing Communications
  • Sharing Economy on the Example of Airbnb
  • Airbnb Strategic Analysis

Southwest Airlines Case Study

Speaking of Southwest Airlines, we won’t mention falls and rises; it is worth attention anyway:

  • Southwest Airlines’ Analysis: In a Different World
  • Southwest Airlines’ Business Policy Summary
  • Southwest Airlines: Company Analysis
  • Southwest Airlines: Company Research

Google Case Study

If not the definition, Google is a synonym for great success. Check it out yourself:

  • The Google Inc. Company Analysis
  • Google Merchandise Store’s Business Performance in 2020
  • Google Business Model
  • Overview of Talent at Google

Walmart Case Study

Walmart marketing strategies deserve attention, that is for sure:

  • Walmart Ltd Financial Analysis
  • Walmart Supply Chain Case Study
  • Walmart: Commercials’ Role in Affirming a Significant Brand
  • Walmart Great Value Line SOSTAC Analysis
  • Walmart Case Study | Best Case Study Topics  

Uber Case Study

Read about Uber’s becoming in different countries:

  • Uber Technologies Inc.’s Workplace Diversity and Inclusion
  • Uber: The Principal-Agent Relationship
  • Uber Case Study: Online Technology Development
  • Uber Company’s Internal Analysis and Business Strategy
  • Management Power and Employee Empowerment: The Case of Uber

Trader Joe’s Case Study

Here you’ll learn about how Trader Joe influenced the organic foods market:

  • Trader Joe’s Company’s Corporate Culture

Nike Case Study

We find the Nike case study extremely interesting for business management students. See yourself:

  • Nike: Case Study
  • Nike Company and the Ethical Production Issues
  • Nike: Company Culture and External Environment
  • Distribution Strategies of the Nike Company
  • Nike Company Case Analysis
  • Nike’s Project Failure with Supply Chain System

McDonald’s Case Study

McDonald’s business model is also too interesting not to pay attention to it:

  • Business Strategy Analysis McDonalds
  • McDonalds Company: Human Resource’ Functions
  • McDonalds’ vs. Wal-Mart’s Strategic Choices
  • McDonalds Entering Estonia Case Analysis
  • McDonald’s Case Study Freshest Ideas – Strategic Management, Global Marketing

Zara Case Study

Zara’s CEO has a unique approach to business that led him to that immense success:

  • Innovation in Action: Zara Stores Case Analysis
  • Zara Company: The Case Study
  • Zara: A Cut Apart From the Competition
  • Zara Company’s Fashion Strategy
  • Zara Company’s International Strategy and Success
  • Zara Company’s Business Model, Competition, Values
  • Zara: Fast Fashion Case Analysis

Costco Case Study

Learn about one of the largest wholesale companies in these case study examples:

  • Costco Financial Statement Analysis Research Paper
  • Costco Wholesale Chain Distributorship Analysis
  • Organizational Management Model of Costco Wholesale
  • Marketing and Promotional Strategies of the Costco
  • Costco Wholesale Corporation: Company Analysis
  • Costco Wholesale: Full Analysis of the Company

Disney Case Study

Disney is an example of how one man’s project became a huge and popular company:

  • The Walt Disney Company: The Entertainment King
  • The Walt Disney Company Strategic Management
  • Walt Disney World: Financial Analysis
  • Walt Disney Marketing Strategy: Consumer Behavior Analysis
  • SWOT Analysis of Disneyland
  • Disneyland and Its Marketing in France
  • Disney Organizational Structure | Best Disney Case Study Ideas

Coca-Cola Case Study

Coca-cola proves that with the proper knowledge of consumers’ psychology, it’s easier to make a profit:

  • Management in the Coca-Cola Company
  • Coca-Cola’s Strategic Plans
  • Operations and Information Management of Coca Cola
  • Coca-Cola Company in China
  • Coca-Cola: Company Analysis
  • Company Analysis: The Coca-Cola Company
  • The Coca-Cola Company: Financial Analysis
  • Coca-Cola Case Study: Internal Communication, Diversity, Marketing Strategy

Chipotle Case Analysis

We want to present you the analyses of Chipotle – the US casual-fast food chain from the early 90-s:

  • Organizational Behavior in Chipotle: General Analysis and Recommendations
  • McDonald’s and Chipotle: Corporate Social Responsibility

Concluding words

As you can see, case analysis is a complex but doable task. You just need to know the right tools.

We hope to provide you with all the necessary knowledge about business analysis. We are sure that you will use them and get an excellent mark. What’s more important is that you’ll master the skill of conducting a case analysis.

Use consistent approaches and formal language, add statistical data, and everything will be fine.

🔗 References

  • 6 Steps of a Case Analysis (With Example) | Indeed.com
  • Writing a Case Study Analysis | UAGC Writing Center
  • What Should Your Business Case Analysis Do?
  • The Case Analysis – Grand Valley State University
  • What Is Business Case Analysis (BCA)?
  • Guidelines for Business Case Analysis – University of Potsdam
  • Writing a Case Analysis – UNSW Australia Business School

Research Paper Analysis: How to Analyze a Research Article + Example

Film analysis: example, format, and outline + topics & prompts.

How to Write a Great Business Case

Explore more.

  • Case Teaching

C ase studies are powerful teaching tools. “When you have a good case, and students who are well prepared to learn and to teach each other, you get some magical moments that students will never forget,” says James L. Heskett, UPS Foundation Professor of Business Logistics, emeritus, at Harvard Business School (HBS). “They will remember the lessons they learn in that class discussion and apply them 20 years later.”

Yet, for many educators who want to pen their own case, the act of writing a great business case seldom comes easily or naturally. For starters, it’s time consuming. Case writers can spend substantial time visiting companies, securing a willing site, conducting interviews, observing operations, collecting data, reviewing notes, writing the case, revising the narrative, ensuring that teaching points come through, and then getting executives to approve the finished product.

The question, then, becomes: Where do you begin? How do you approach case writing? How do you decide which company to use as the subject of the case? And what distinguishes a well-written case from a mediocre one?

We asked three expert HBS case writers—who collectively have written and supported hundreds of cases—to share their insights on how to write a great business case study that will inspire passionate classroom discussion and transmit key educational concepts.

Insights from James L. Heskett

UPS Foundation Professor of Business Logistics, Emeritus, Harvard Business School

Keep your eyes open for a great business issue.

“I’m always on the prowl for new case material. Whenever I’m reading or consulting, I look for interesting people doing interesting things and facing interesting challenges. For instance, I was reading a magazine and came across a story about how Shouldice Hospital treated patients undergoing surgery to fix inguinal hernias—how patients would get up from the operating table and walk away on the arm of the surgeon.

6 QUALITIES OF GREAT CASE WRITERS

Comfort with ambiguity, since cases may have more than one “right” answer

Command of the topic or subject at hand

Ability to relate to the case protagonists

Enthusiasm for the case teaching method

Capacity for finding the drama in a business situation and making it feel personal to students

Build relationships with executives.

“When writing a case, it’s helpful to start as high in the organization as possible. It helps assure mid-level managers that they can share the information you need with an outsider. It also helps when it comes to getting the case cleared for use. Serving on corporate boards can help in building relationships with senior executives, but there are other ways to make those connections. For instance, you can approach speakers at business conferences if you think their presentations could form the basis for a good business case. If you want to write about a company where you don’t have any personal connections, you can always check with your colleagues to see if any of them have a personal relationship with the CEO or sit on a board where they could introduce you to the right person who would be able to facilitate the case. My colleagues and I make a lot of these introductions for each other.”

“If you make the case into a crossword puzzle that takes five hours to solve, it’s not really fair to the students and will most likely cause them to lose focus.” James L. Heskett

Skip the curveballs and focus on key issues.

“Cases don’t have to be obvious. As a pedagogical objective, you might want students to look beyond a superficial issue to say this is the underlying topic that we need to address, and these are the questions we need to pose. Still, I think it’s unhelpful if cases contain real curveballs where ‘unlocking’ the case depends on finding some small piece of information hidden in an exhibit. Give students a break! They may have to read and digest three cases per day, so they probably won’t be able to devote more than a couple of hours to each one. If you make the case into a crossword puzzle that takes five hours to solve, it’s not really fair to the students and will most likely cause them to lose focus.”

Build a discussion plan while writing the case.

“In case method teaching, the teacher is not in complete control. Students teach each other and learn from each other. On any given day, there will likely be somebody in the room who knows more about the company featured in the case than the professor does. So a professor can’t walk into the classroom and expect to impose a lesson plan that goes in a strict linear way from A to B to C to D. The case ought to be written to allow students to jump from A to D and then come back later to B if that’s how the discussion plays out. At the same time, the case should be structured so that the instructor can collect student comments on a board, organizing them as a coherent set of related ideas, and then deliver a 5-to-10-minute summary that communicates whatever essential concepts the case has covered. This summation can be a very powerful teaching and learning experience.”

Focus on quality over quantity.

“Cases don’t have to be too long. Some good cases are only two or three pages. Students may give more scrutiny to these brief cases than they would a 20-page case.”

Advice from Benson P. Shapiro

Malcolm P. McNair Professor of Marketing, Emeritus, Harvard Business School

Take out the chaff in advance.

“You don’t want students to spend too much time separating the wheat from the chaff. If a case has 12 pages of text and 10 pages of exhibits, even the smartest MBA students will likely lose interest. Writers who try to capture a situation from every angle and in every detail end up with sprawling narratives that usually do not make a good case. When writing cases, you need to set good, strong boundaries. Avoid superfluous, flowery, or poetic material that may contain interesting anecdotes or factoids, but that could distract readers from the case’s core topics. Include only those important and useful details that can help students make decisions and understand key issues that the case explores.”

Work in layers and metaphors—subtly.

“The best cases work on multiple levels. A case should focus on a specific situation—for example, whether or not to introduce a certain product. But it should also serve as a metaphor for broader issues in the background: How do we think about introducing new products? Are we introducing enough products? Are new product introductions a source of competitive advantage in our industry? How should we organize and manage new product development? You want the case to encourage students to think broadly about the various cultural, financial, and strategic impacts that managerial decisions have on a company.”

“Writers who try to capture a situation from every angle and in every detail end up with sprawling narratives that usually do not make a good case.” Benson P. Shapiro

Encourage emotional engagement.

“Case writing is an interesting literary form—it needs to be very engaging, but also educational. Great cases revolve around points of contention on which intelligent people can hold different points of view: What should you do? Why? How do you get it done? Ideally, students should have to choose between two very attractive alternatives or two terrible alternatives. The best cases involve questions that get students emotionally engaged so that they really care about choices and outcomes. When you see students physically leaning forward and following what their peers are saying, you know that they have a visceral feel for the importance of the subject. When you hear them debating after class— You were out in left field! You missed what was really important here! —that’s how you can tell you succeeded in developing a great case.”

Lessons from Carin-Isabel Knoop

Executive Director of the Case Research & Writing Group, Harvard Business School

Don’t forget the classroom component.

“Cases are deliberately incomplete documents. What a case writer leaves out of a case is often just as important as what he or she puts into it. Cases are designed to be completed through classroom instruction and discussion. While drafting the case, try to develop the classroom process in parallel. Work on the assignment questions and classroom content. Keep in mind that the case should be able to adapt to your classroom and course needs.”

Hone your elevator pitch.

“Before getting started, always have clear, succinct learning objectives in mind. Don’t start developing the case until you are able to summarize these objectives in less than five minutes.”

Case writing is a relationship, not a transaction.

When choosing a case site, be clear with executives that you are developing a teaching tool and that you will require their time and candor—and eventually their data. Put them at ease, and manage the authorization process, right from the start. Indicate that quotes will be cleared before publication and there will be time for individual review. During the creation process, ask their advice. This creates a process of engagement and helps bring home that this is a pedagogical tool, not gotcha journalism. At HBS, we oftentimes invite someone from the company to attend class. Finally, once the case is done, stay in touch with your case protagonists. They will move to other organizations and spread the good word about their experience with case writing.

Invite disagreement in case discussions.

“The case study method is based on participant-centered learning. The students all start from the same base of 11 (or however many) pages in the case, but they bring different knowledge and experiences into the classroom. So they can take the same facts and disagree about what course of action to pursue. We want students to behave like decision makers, and it can be painful to make decisions. Some critics deride the case teaching method as being unrealistic, but someone who just lectures about marketing doesn’t help students realize how difficult it is to choose between two plausible options to meet the same marketing objectives. For students, a big part of the education process is learning from discussions with classmates who think differently and advocate for different solutions. Witnessing a robust case discussion reminds us of the potential for collective learning to emerge from contrasting views.”

“Faculty don’t just write cases for teaching purposes, they write them to learn.” Carin-Isabel Knoop

The Case Writing Process Is a Worthy Effort

Researching, writing, and publishing cases is well worth the time and effort. “The case research and writing process is important for faculty development,” Knoop adds. “While developing field cases, faculty go to site visits and meet with decision makers. The case writing process helps connect scholars to practitioners and practitioners to the academic world. Faculty case writers get to explore and test how their academic theories work in practice. So faculty don’t just write cases for teaching purposes, they write them to learn. The case method is an integral part of faculty development.”

There’s another big bonus to becoming a case writer, especially for younger educators. “Young business instructors face a credibility gap with their students,” says Heskett. “It’s not uncommon to have MBA students in a class who have more experience than the instructor on a particular subject. Once you go into the field and write a case, you will know more about that subject than anyone else in the class. A primary way for professors to establish their credibility on a topic is to have written the case the class is discussing that day.”

James L. Heskett

James L. Heskett is UPS Foundation Professor of Business Logistics, emeritus, at Harvard Business School. He completed his Ph.D. at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, and has been a faculty member at The Ohio State University as well as president of Logistics Systems, Inc. Since 2000, he has authored a blog on Harvard Business School’s Working Knowledge website .

Benson P. Shapiro

Benson P. Shapiro is the Malcolm P. McNair Professor of Marketing, emeritus, at Harvard Business School where he taught full time from 1970 to 1997. Since 1997, Shapiro has concentrated his professional time on consulting, giving speeches, serving on boards, and writing. He continues to teach at Harvard and has taught in many executive programs and has chaired the Sustainable Marketing Leadership for Mid-Sized Firms Program.

Carin-Isabel Knoop

Carin-Isabel Knoop is the executive director of the Case Research & Writing Group at Harvard Business School. She is also coauthor of Compassionate Management of Mental Health in the Modern Workplace .

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What is business analytics?

Man displays data on a screen to a conference room of individuals.

It should come as no surprise that big business decisions are made every single day at companies small and large. 

It is also well assumed that the best big decisions are ones with evidence and back them up—in the form of data. But how does data go from being raw information like surveys and click-through rates to being part of sometimes world-altering decision-making? Business analytics is how.

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The Online MS in Business Analytics from Pepperdine

The emphasis on data-powered decision-making is nothing new; in fact, businesses have known about its significance for years. A decade ago, Deloitte noted in a 2013 study that focus on big data and analytics were to be the “new normal” for maintaining growth. “Companies must focus on evolving their analytical maturity in addition to developing capabilities around rapid experimentation and trial and error. Remaining agile will be essential for handling this “new normal,” it stated.

So, with today there being hundreds of thousands of workers who describe themselves as business analysts (not to mention there now being an entire international organization dedicated to the field, the IIBA ), an important question lingers: what exactly even is business analytics? Fortune has you covered.

In the simplest terms, business analytics is the process or the ability to drive decisions using data and analytics, according to Anindya Ghose, the director of the master’s of science in business analytics program at New York University’s Stern School of Business. The school Stern is home to the no. 9 best MBA program , based on Fortune ’s ranking.

Business analytics is a field that is constantly evolving in accordance with technological developments. A few decades ago, business analytics was a much simpler domain in the typical business-tech space: spreadsheets could house information, trends could be identified using basic formulas, and data could be visualized to the team of decision-makers.

But today, business analytics is everywhere—in tech, healthcare, education, retail, media, and beyond. 

“The way we think about business analytics now—it’s a little bit of everything for everybody,” says Devanshu Mehrotra, curriculum developer and lead instructor at General Assembly, with a background in the world of analytics.

Business analytics is more so the art of data translating, says Mehrotra.

“And the idea is, since data is being democratized, and the idea is that specific organizations should own their data, they should be responsible for their data, then it’s important for there to be data translators,” he adds.

What skills do you need for business analytics?

While the exact skills needed to excel in business analytics may differ depending on industry, company, and level of experience, there are several foundations that are important to have, including:

  • Domain expertise: business fundamentals and relevant industry knowledge
  • Technical know-how: programming, data analysis, data visualization
  • Storytelling: translating data trends to business needs

The last point in particular was something Mehrotra and Ghose both emphasized as an area that really sets excellent business analysts apart from other fields. 

Additionally, knowledge of both high and low code tools are important technical aspects of the job, including for, as Mehrotra notes:

Because there are many data-related tools available—and every company may use something different—Mehrotra says it is important to be tool agnostic. 

“Multiple tools should be in your repertoire, (so) that you pick the tool based on the problem, not try and shove every problem into the two tools that you know,” he says. “And that’s why I’m always like—it’s do you understand the why before you understand the how.”

Ghose adds that in order to succeed in business analytics, having training in these two areas are of great importance:

  • Econometrics (advanced statistics and modeling)
  • Experimental design (creation and understanding of tests and behaviors)

It would also be remiss to not mention the criticality of AI in space. Like other fields, the tech is streamlining some of the day-to-day activities of business analytics. 

How can you learn business analytics?

Those wanting to get involved in business analytics are in luck because there are numerous ways to learn the in-demand skills.

When looking at traditional degree pathways, many universities have undergraduate and graduate degrees focused specifically on business analytics. ( Fortune ranks the best online master’s in business analytics ). And even if there is no program labeled business analytics directly, you can also gain through a combination of business and data science endeavors.

If a longer degree program is not for you, checking out a bootcamp or course in business analytics may provide a quicker, cheaper, and/or more flexible opportunity.

A few years ago, Mehrotra explains he may have recommended going down a traditional degree route, but because the world of analytics is always changing, a shorter program may be a better way to get the most up-to-date skills from instructors with recent industry experience.

“To me, I think long form education, specifically around these areas are not very impactful and not a good return on investment,” Mehrotra says. “I think short form and creating your own journey, so as to speak, is important and I do think that some kind of short form educational programs are a very important part of that.”

Regardless, what’s key to sticking out in a competitive job ecosystem is gaining hands-on projects, creating a portfolio, and learning from instructors with real-world experience, Mehrotra notes.

Studying business analytics also does not necessarily mean you are boxed in to becoming a business analyst. Other job titles may include data scientist , data analyst , market researcher, chief digital officer, chief data officer, head of product, and intelligence analyst.

“It’s now increasingly difficult, if not impossible to imagine—taking decisions without the help of computers, algorithms and data,” Ghose says. “So, you will almost certainly see lots of benefits from that. I think that is just the way of the world today will just continue to be even more ubiquitous as we proceed. So, jump in and join the party.”

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Harvard Business Analytics Program

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When thinking of artificial intelligence (AI) use cases, the question might be asked:  What won’t AI be able to do? The easy answer is mostly manual labor, although the day might come when much of what is now manual labor will be accomplished by robotic devices controlled by AI. But right now, pure AI can be programmed for many tasks that require thought and intelligence , as long as that intelligence can be gathered digitally and used to train an AI system. AI is not yet loading the dishwasher after supper—but can help create a legal brief, a new product design, or a letter to grandma.

We’re all amazed by what AI can do. But the question for those of us in business is what are the best business uses? Assembling a version of the Mona Lisa in the style of Vincent van Gough is fun, but how often will that boost the bottom line? Here are 27 highly productive ways that AI use cases can help businesses improve their bottom line.

Customer-facing AI use cases

Deliver superior customer service.

Customer interactions can now be assisted in real time with conversational AI. Voice-based queries use natural language processing (NLP) and sentiment analysis for speech  recognition so their conversations can begin immediately. Using machine learning algorithms, AI can understand what customers are saying as well as their tone—and can direct them to customer service agents when needed. With text to speech and NLP, AI can respond immediately to texted queries and instructions. There’s no need to make customers wait for the answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs) or to take the next step to purchase. And digital customer service agents can boost customer satisfaction by offering advice and guidance to customer service agents.

Personalize customer experiences

The use of AI is effective for creating personalized experiences at scale through chatbots, digital assistants and customer interfaces , delivering tailored experiences and targeted advertisements to customers and end-users. For example, Amazon reminds customers to reorder their most often-purchased products, and shows them related products or suggestions. McDonald’s is building AI solutions for customer care with IBM Watson AI technology and NLP to accelerate the development of its automated order taking (AOT) technology. Not only will this help scale the AOT tech across markets, but it will also help tackle integrations including additional languages, dialects and menu variations. Over at Spotify, they’ll suggest a new artist for the customer’s listening pleasure. YouTube will deliver a curated feed of content suited to customer interests.

Promote cross- and up-selling

Recommendation engines use consumer behavior data and AI algorithms to help discover data trends to be used in the development of more effective up-selling and cross-selling strategies, resulting in more useful add-on recommendations for customers during checkout for online retailers. Other uses include Netflix offering viewing recommendations powered by models that process data sets collected from viewing history; LinkedIn uses ML to filter items in a newsfeed, making employment recommendations and suggestions on who to connect with; and Spotify uses ML models to generate its song recommendations.

Smarten up smartphones

Facial recognition turns on smartphones and voice assistants, powered by machine learning, while Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, Google Assistant and Microsoft’s Copilot use NLP to recognize what we say and then respond appropriately. Companies also take advantage of ML in smartphone cameras to analyze and enhance photos using image classifiers, detect objects (or faces) in the images, and even use artificial neural networks to enhance or expand a photo by predicting what lies beyond its borders.

Introduce personal assistants

Virtual assistants or voice assistants, such as Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri, are powered by AI. When someone asks a question via speech or text, ML searches for the answer or recalls similar questions the person has asked before. The same technology can power messaging bots, such as those used by Facebook Messenger and Slack—while Google Assistant, Cortana and IBM watsonx Assistant combine NLP to understand questions and requests , take appropriate actions and compose responses.

Humanize Human Resources

AI can attract, develop and retain a skills-first workforce . A flood of applications can be screened, sorted and passed to HR team members with precision. Manual promotion assessment tasks can be automated, making it easier to gain important HR insights with a clearer view of, for example, employees up for promotion and assessing whether they’ve met key benchmarks . Routine questions from staff can be quickly answered using AI.

Creative AI use cases

Create with generative ai.

Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, Bard and DeepAI rely on limited memory AI capabilities to predict the next word, phrase or visual element within the content it’s generating. Generative AI can produce high-quality text, images and other content based on the data used for training.

IBM Research is working to help its customers use generative models to write high-quality  software code  faster, discover  new molecules , and train trustworthy conversational chatbots  grounded on enterprise data. The IBM team is even using generative AI to create  synthetic data  to build more robust and trustworthy AI models and to stand in for real-world data protected by privacy and copyright laws.

Deliver new insights

Expert systems can be trained on a corpus—metadata used to train a machine learning model—to emulate the human decision-making process and apply this expertise to solve complex problems. These systems can evaluate vast amounts of data to uncover trends and patterns, and to make decisions. They can also help businesses predict future events and understand why past events occurred.

Clarify computer vision

AI-powered computer vision enables image segmentation , which has a wide variety of  use cases, including aiding diagnosis in medical imaging, automating locomotion for robotics and self-driving cars, identifying objects of interest in satellite images and photo tagging in social media. Running on neural networks , computer vision enables systems to extract meaningful information from digital images, videos and other visual inputs.

Technical AI use cases

Speed operations with aiops.

There are many benefits to using  artificial intelligence for IT operations (AIOps) . By infusing AI into IT operations , companies can harness the considerable power of NLP, big data, and ML models to automate and streamline operational workflows, and monitor event correlation and causality determination.

AIOps is one of the fastest ways to boost ROI from digital transformation investments. Process automation is often centered on efforts to optimize spend, achieve greater operational efficiency and incorporate new and innovative technologies, which often translate into a better customer experience. More benefits from AI include building a more sustainable IT system and improving the continuous integration/continuous (CI/CD) delivery pipelines.

Automate coding and app modernization

Leading companies are now using generative AI for application modernization and enterprise IT operations, including automating coding, deploying and scaling. For coding, developers can input a coding command as a straightforward English sentence through a natural-language interface and get automatically generated code . Using generative AI with code generation capabilities can also enable hybrid cloud developers of all experience levels to migrate and modernize legacy application code at scale, to new target platforms with code consistency, fewer errors, and speed.

Boost application performance

Ensuring that apps perform consistently and constantly—without overprovisioning and overspending—is a critical AI operations (AIOps) use case. Automation is key to optimizing cloud costs, and IT teams, no matter how skilled they are, don’t always have the capacity to continuously determine the exact compute, storage and database configurations needed to deliver performance at the lowest cost. AI software can identify when and how resources are used, and match actual demand in real time.

Strengthen end-to-end system resilience

To help ensure uninterrupted service availability, leading organizations use real-time root cause analysis capabilities powered by AI and intelligent automation. AIOps can enable ITOps teams to swiftly identify the underlying causes of incidents and take immediate action to reduce both mean time between failures (MTBF) and mean time to repair (MTTR) incidents.

AIOps platform solutions also consolidate data from multiple sources and correlate events into incidents, granting clear visibility into the entire IT environment through dynamic infrastructure visualizations, integrated AI capabilities and suggested remediation actions.

Using predictive IT management, IT teams can use AI to automate IT and network operations to resolve incidents swiftly and efficiently—and proactively prevent issues before they occur, enhance user experiences and cut the cost of and administrative tasks. To help eliminate tool sprawl, an enterprise-grade AIOps platform can provide a holistic view of IT operations on a central pane of glass for monitoring and management.

Lock in cybersecurity

There are many ways AI can use ML to deliver improved cybersecurity, including: facial recognition for authentication, fraud detection, antivirus programs to detect and block malware, reinforcement learning to train models that identify and respond to cyberattacks and detect intrusions and classification algorithms that label events as anomalies or phishing attacks.

Gear up robotics

AI is not just about asking for a haiku written by a cat. Robots handle and move physical objects. In industrial settings, narrow AI can perform routine, repetitive tasks involving materials handling, assembly and quality inspections. AI can assist surgeons by monitoring vitals and detecting potential issues during procedures. Agricultural machines can engage in autonomous pruning, moving, thinning, seeding and spraying. Smart home devices such as the iRobot Roomba can navigate a home’s interior using computer vision and use data stored in memory to understand its progress. And if AI can guide a Roomba, it can also direct self-driving cars on the highway and robots moving merchandise in a distribution center or on patrol for security and safety protocols.

Clean up with predictive maintenance

AI can be used for predictive maintenance by analyzing data directly from machinery to identify problems and flag required maintenance. AI has also been used to improve mechanical efficiency and reduce carbon emissions in engines. Maintenance schedules can use AI-powered predictive analytics to create greater efficiencies.

See what’s ahead

AI can assist with forecasting . For example, a supply-chain function can use algorithms to predict future needs and the time products need to be shipped for timely arrival. This can help create new efficiencies, reduce overstocks and help make up for reordering oversights.

Industry AI use cases

AI can power tasks and tools for almost any industry to boost efficiency and productivity. AI can deliver intelligent automation to streamline business processes that were manual tasks or run on legacy systems—which can be resource-intensive, costly and prone to human error. Here are some of the industries that are benefiting now from the added power of AI.

With applications of AI, automotive manufacturers are able to more effectively predict and adjust production to respond to changes in supply and demand. They can streamline workflows to increase efficiency and reduce time-consuming tasks and the risk of error in production, support, procurement and other areas. Robots help reduce the need for manual labor and improve defect discovery, providing higher quality vehicles to customers at a lower cost to the business.

In education and training , AI can tailor educational materials to each individual student’s needs. Teachers and trainers can use AI analytics to see where students might need extra help and attention. For students tempted to plagiarize their papers or homework, AI can help spot the copied content. AI-driven language translation tools and real-time transcription services can help non-native speakers understand the lessons.

Companies in the energy sector can increase their cost competitiveness by harnessing AI and data analytics for demand forecasting, energy conservation, optimization of renewables and smart grid management. By introducing AI into energy generation, transmission and distribution processes, AI can also improve customer support, freeing up resources for innovation. And for customers using supplier-based AI, they can better understand their energy consumption and take steps to reduce their power draw during peak demand periods.

Financial services

AI-powered FinOps (Finance + DevOps) helps financial institutions operationalize data-driven cloud spend decisions to safely balance cost and performance in order to minimize alert fatigue and wasted budget. AI platforms can use machine learning and deep learning to spot suspicious or anomalous transactions. Banks and other lenders can use ML classification algorithms and predictive models to suggest loan decisions.

Many stock market transactions use ML with decades of stock market data to forecast trends and ultimately suggest whether and when to buy or sell. ML can also conduct algorithmic trading without human intervention. ML algorithms can predict patterns, improve accuracy, lower costs and reduce the risk of human error.

The  healthcare industry is using intelligent automation with NLP to provide a consistent approach to data analysis, diagnosis and treatment. The use of chatbots in remote healthcare appointments requires less human intervention and often a shorter time to diagnosis. On-site, ML can be used in radiology imaging, with AI-enabled computer vision often used to analyze mammograms and for early lung cancer screening. ML can also be trained to create treatment plans, classify tumors, find bone fractures and detect neurological disorders.

In genetic research, gene modification and genome sequencing, ML is used to identify how genes impact health. ML can identify genetic markers and genes that will or will not respond to a specific treatment or drug and may cause significant side effects in certain people.

With AI, insurance providers can virtually eliminate the need for manual rate calculations or payments and can simplify processing claims and appraisals. Intelligent automation also helps insurance companies adhere to compliance regulations more easily by ensuring that requirements are met. This way, they are also able to calculate the risk of an individual or entity and calculate the appropriate insurance rate.

Manufacturing

Advanced AI with analytics can help manufacturers create predictive insights on market trends. Generative AI can speed and optimize product design by helping companies create multiple design options. AI can also assist with suggestions for boosting production efficiency. Using historical data of production, generative AI can predict or locate equipment failures in real time—and then suggest equipment adjustments, repair options or needed spare parts.

Pharmaceuticals

For the life sciences industry, drug discovery and production require an immense amount of data collection, collation, processing and analysis. A manual approach to development and testing could lead to calculation errors and require a huge volume of resources. By contrast, the production of Covid-19 vaccines in record time is an example of how intelligent automation enables processes that improve production speed and quality.

AI is becoming the secret weapon for retailers to better understand and cater to increasing consumer demands. With highly personalized online shopping, direct-to-consumer models and delivery services competing with retail, generative AI can help retailers and e-commerce firms improve customer care, plan marketing campaigns, and transform the capabilities of their talent and their applications. AI can even help optimize inventory management.

Generative AI excels at handling diverse data sources such as emails, images, videos, audio files and social media content. This unstructured data forms the backbone for creating models and the ongoing training of generative AI, so it can remain useful over time. Leveraging this unstructured data can extend benefits to various aspects of retail operations, including enhancing customer service through chatbots and facilitating more effective email routing. In practice, this could mean guiding users to the appropriate resources, whether that’s connecting them with the right agent or directing them to user guides and FAQs.

Transportation

AI informs many transportation systems these days. For instance, Google Maps uses ML algorithms to check current traffic conditions, determine the fastest route, suggest places to “explore nearby” and estimate arrival times.

Ride-sharing applications such as Uber and Lyft use ML to match riders and drivers, set prices, examine traffic and, like Google Maps, analyze real-time traffic conditions to optimize driving routes and estimate arrival times.

Computer vision guides self-driving cars. An unsupervised ML algorithm enables self-driving cars to gather data from cameras and sensors to understand what’s happening around them, and enables real-time decision-making.

Delivering the promise of AI

Much of what AI can do seems miraculous, but much of what gets reported in the general media is frivolous fun or just plain scary. What is now available to business is a remarkably powerful tool that can help many industries and functions make great strides. The companies that do not explore and adopt the most beneficial AI use cases will soon be at a severe competitive disadvantage. Keeping an eye out for the most useful AI tools, such as IBM ® watsonx.ai™, and mastering them now will pay great dividends.

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The Trump fraud trial verdict goes well beyond ordering the ex-president to pay $355 million. Here's what the ruling means.

  • Trump, his eldest sons, and Trump Org must pay back $364 million pocketed through a decade of fraud.
  • Friday's verdict also bans Trump from running a business in New York for three years  — including Trump Org.
  • Trump's frauds "leap off the page and shock the conscience," the judge wrote.

Insider Today

In a scathing verdict that punishes a decade of deceit, the judge in Donald Trump's New York civil fraud case on Friday slammed the GOP frontrunner, his two eldest sons, and his company with a nearly $364 million cash penalty.

"The frauds found here leap off the page and shock the conscience," said the verdict by New York Supreme Court Arthur Engoron , who has presided over the case for more than three years.

While Trump is personally on the hook for almost $355 million of that penalty, Donald Trump, Jr., and Eric Trump must pay $4 million each. And former Trump CFO Allen Weisselberg $1 million.

But the verdict hits way beyond just Trump's wallet. It targets his real-estate and golf resort empire, the Trump Organization, and does so in two ways that Trump has pushed against for years.

First, the verdict wrests control of the company further away from the former president and his two eldest sons, leaving major company decisions to a yet-named, "independent director of compliance" who'll operate under the continuing watch of his existing court-appointed monitor.

Second, it sets a three-year ban on Trump running Trump Org or any other business in the city and state where he made his name — and where he first seized a national spotlight as a brash real-estate mogul. For Trump, it's the commercial equivalent of being run out of town on a rail.

Significantly — and this is a big silver lining for Trump — the verdict reverses the most unfriendly elements of the judge's pre-trial " corporate death penalty " judgment from September.

He no longer has to surrender all of Trump Organization's New York operating licenses. And the verdict makes no mention of the forced sale of any Trump properties.

The verdict caps a five-year effort by the office of state Attorney General Letitia James .

On Friday afternoon, James issued a statement celebrating the verdict.

She said that Trump has for years engaged in fraud to enrich his own family and company.

Now, he and his codefendants will have to pay more than $450 million, including interest.

"While he may have authored the 'Art of the Deal,' our case revealed that his business was based on the art of the steal," she said.

Trump is expected to immediately appeal, likely putting these and other punishments from the 92-page verdict on ice well past the November election.

But Trump will still have to spend millions on a surety bond in the coming weeks, to guarantee he can pay whatever dollar figure an appellate court ultimately upholds, plus interest.

Interest also applies to the penalties themselves, potentially adding millions of dollars more to his ultimate verdict price tag.

"When confronted at trial with the statements, defendants' fact and expert witnesses simply denied reality, and defendants failed to accept responsibility or to impose internal controls to prevent future recurrences," Judge Engoron wrote Friday.

The verdict holds Trump civilly liable, based on Engoron's three-month Manhattan bench trial, for leading a conspiracy to commit business and insurance fraud with help from his two eldest sons and a pair of longstanding Trump Org executives.

"Their complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological," the judge wrote.

"They are accused only of inflating asset values to make more money," the judge said.

"The documents prove this over and over again. This is a venial sin, not a mortal sin," he added. "Defendants did not commit murder or arson. They did not rob a bank at gunpoint. Donald Trump is not Bernard Madoff. Yet, defendants are incapable of admitting the error of their ways."

In a statement, a Trump Organization spokesperson decried the verdict as a "gross miscarriage of justice."

"Every member of the New York business community, no matter the industry, should be gravely concerned with this gross overreach and brazen attempt by the Attorney General to exert limitless power where no private or public harm has been established," the spokesperson said in a statement. "If allowed to stand, this ruling will only further expedite the continuing exodus of companies from New York."

Read Friday's verdict here.

"Today, justice has been served. This is a tremendous victory for this state, this nation, and for everyone who believes that we all must play by the same rules — even former presidents," James said in her statement Friday. 

" When powerful people cheat to get better loans, it comes at the expense of honest and hardworking people," James continued. "Everyday Americans cannot lie to a bank to get a mortgage to buy a home, and if they did, our government would throw the book at them. There simply cannot be different rules for different people.

Some lesser penalties

In addition to the above, the verdict bans Trump and the Trump Organization from borrowing from a New York bank or purchasing real estate in the state for three years. James had asked for a five-year ban on such buying and borrowing in her lawsuit.

Donald Trump, Jr., and Eric Trump are banned from running a New York business for two years. James had asked for five-year bans for the brothers.

And it bans the two former executives, ex-CFO Allen Weisselberg and ex-Controller Jeff McConney, from controlling the finances of another New York company.

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Watch: Trump fights back as fraud trial begins

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Trump Fraud Trial Penalty Will Exceed $450 Million

The ruling in Donald J. Trump’s civil fraud case could cost him all his available cash. The judge said that the former president’s “complete lack of contrition” bordered on pathological.

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Donald Trump, wearing a blue suit and blue tie, sits at the defendant’s table in a courtroom.

By Jonah E. Bromwich and Ben Protess

A New York judge on Friday handed Donald J. Trump a crushing defeat in his civil fraud case , finding the former president liable for conspiring to manipulate his net worth and ordering him to pay a penalty of nearly $355 million plus interest that could wipe out his entire stockpile of cash .

The decision by Justice Arthur F. Engoron caps a chaotic, yearslong case in which New York’s attorney general put Mr. Trump’s fantastical claims of wealth on trial. With no jury, the power was in Justice Engoron’s hands alone, and he came down hard: The judge delivered a sweeping array of punishments that threatens the former president’s business empire as he simultaneously contends with four criminal prosecutions and seeks to regain the White House.

Justice Engoron barred Mr. Trump for three years from serving in top roles at any New York company, including portions of his own Trump Organization. He also imposed a two-year ban on the former president’s adult sons and ordered that they pay more than $4 million each. One of them, Eric Trump, is the company’s de facto chief executive, and the ruling throws into doubt whether any member of the family can run the business in the near term.

The judge also ordered that they pay substantial interest, pushing the penalty for the former president to $450 million, according to the attorney general, Letitia James.

In his unconventional style, Justice Engoron criticized Mr. Trump and the other defendants for refusing to admit wrongdoing for years. “Their complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological,” he said.

He noted that Mr. Trump had not committed violent crimes and also conceded that “Donald Trump is not Bernard Madoff.” Still, he wrote, “defendants are incapable of admitting the error of their ways.”

business case analysis about

The Civil Fraud Ruling on Donald Trump, Annotated

Former President Donald J. Trump was penalized $355 million plus interest and banned for three years from serving in any top roles at a New York company, including his own, in a ruling on Friday by Justice Arthur F. Engoron.

Mr. Trump will appeal the financial penalty but will have to either come up with the money or secure a bond within 30 days. The ruling will not render him bankrupt, because most of his wealth is in real estate, which altogether is worth far more than the penalty.

Mr. Trump will also ask an appeals court to halt the restrictions on him and his sons from running the company while it considers the case. In a news conference from his Palm Beach, Fla., home, Mar-a-Lago, on Friday evening, he attacked Ms. James and Justice Engoron, calling them both “corrupt.”

Alina Habba, one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, described the ruling in her own statement as “a manifest injustice — plain and simple.” She added that “given the grave stakes, we trust that the Appellate Division will overturn this egregious verdict.”

But there might be little Mr. Trump can do to thwart one of the judge’s most consequential punishments: extending for three years the appointment of an independent monitor who is the court’s eyes and ears at the Trump Organization. Justice Engoron also strengthened the monitor’s authority to watch for fraud and second-guess transactions that look suspicious.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers have railed against the monitor, Barbara Jones, saying that her work had already cost the business more than $2.5 million; the decision to extend her oversight of the privately held company could enrage the Trumps, who see her presence as an irritant and an insult.

Ms. James had sought an even harsher penalty, asking for Mr. Trump to be permanently barred from New York’s business world. In the 2022 lawsuit that precipitated the trial, she accused Mr. Trump of inflating his net worth to obtain favorable treatment from banks and other lenders, attacking the foundation of his public persona as a billionaire businessman.

Even though the lenders made money from Mr. Trump, they were the purported victims in the case, with Ms. James arguing that without his fraud, they could have made even more.

The financial penalty reflects those lost profits, with nearly half of the $355 million — $168 million — representing the interest that Mr. Trump saved, and the remaining sum representing his profit on the recent sale of two properties, money that the judge has now clawed back from Mr. Trump and corporate entities he owns.

Before the trial began, Justice Engoron ruled that the former president had used his annual financial statements to defraud the lenders, siding with the attorney general on her case’s central claim. The judge’s Friday ruling ratified almost all of the other accusations Ms. James had leveled against Mr. Trump, finding that the former president had conspired with his top executives to violate several state laws.

The judge’s decision for now grants Ms. James, a Democrat, a career-defining victory. She campaigned for office promising to bring Mr. Trump to justice, and sat calmly in the courtroom as the former president attacked her, calling her a corrupt politician motivated solely by self-interest.

“This long running fraud was intentional, egregious, illegal,” Ms. James said during a Friday evening news conference, adding that “there cannot be different rules for different people in this country, and former presidents are no exception.”

New York Attorney General Speaks on Trump Fraud Case Decision

“today we are holding donald trump accountable,” said the attorney general, letitia james, after a new york judge found donald j. trump’s claims of wealth fraudulent..

No matter how rich, powerful or politically connected you are, everyone must play by the same rules. We have a responsibility to protect the integrity of the marketplace. And for years, Donald Trump engaged in deceptive business practices and tremendous fraud. Donald Trump falsely, knowingly, inflated his net worth by billions of dollars to unjustly enrich himself, his family, and to cheat the system. After 11 weeks of trial, we showed the staggering extent of his fraud and exactly how Donald Trump and the other defendants deceived banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions for their own personal gain. We prove just how much Donald Trump, his family and his company unjustly benefited from his fraud. White-collar financial fraud is not a victimless crime. When the powerful break the law and take more than their fair share, there are fewer resources available for working people, small businesses and families. Today we are holding Donald Trump accountable.

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Her win is Mr. Trump’s second major courtroom loss in two months, following a January jury verdict in a defamation case brought by E. Jean Carroll, a writer whom he was found liable of sexually abusing. The jury penalized him $83.3 million.

Friday’s ruling comes as Manhattan prosecutors are set to try Mr. Trump on criminal charges late next month . He is also contending with 57 more felony counts across three other criminal cases.

But none of his legal troubles seem to have anguished Mr. Trump quite like the fraud case. During the trial, he protested its premise, pleading, “This has been a persecution of somebody that’s done a good job in New York.”

Mr. Trump’s lawyers argued that the fraud did not have a victim in the traditional sense , daring the attorney general to find someone who was harmed. And in a statement on Friday, a Trump Organization spokeswoman noted that the company had “never missed any loan payment or been in default on any loan” and that the lenders “performed extensive due diligence prior to entering into these transactions.”

At trial, Mr. Trump’s lawyers called as witnesses the president’s former bankers, who testified that they had been delighted to have Mr. Trump as a client.

Eric Trump and his brother Donald Trump Jr. also testified, but their efforts to distance themselves from their father’s financial statements fell flat with the judge. Justice Engoron’s decision to bar them from running any New York business for two years — and Mr. Trump for three — will likely strike a nerve with the Trump family.

Before the trial, the fallout from the case seemed to threaten the Trump Organization’s very existence. When Justice Engoron first ruled that Mr. Trump had committed fraud, he ordered the dissolution of much of the former president’s New York empire.

But legal experts had questioned the judge’s ability to do that , and in his ruling on Friday, Justice Engoron pulled back. Instead, the judge said any “restructuring and potential dissolution” would be up to Ms. Jones, the independent monitor.

The judge also granted Ms. Jones new authority as part of an “enhanced monitorship,” and asked her to recommend an independent compliance director who will oversee the company’s financial reporting from within its ranks.

The monitorship and other penalties, including a three-year ban on Mr. Trump and his company seeking loans from banks registered in New York, could hamstring the company as it seeks to compete in the state’s crowded real estate market.

However, nothing will hurt quite as much as the financial penalty. If upheld on appeal, it could erase the cushion of liquidity — cash, stocks and bonds — that Mr. Trump built in his post-presidential life.

Mr. Trump claimed under oath last year that he was sitting on more than $400 million in cash, but between Justice Engoron’s $355 million punishment, the interest Mr. Trump owes and the $83.3 million payout to Ms. Carroll, that might all be gone. If so, Mr. Trump might have to sell one of his properties or another asset to cover the payouts.

The symbolism of the punishments cannot be overlooked, either. Mr. Trump is synonymous with the company he ran for decades, and by severing him from its operations, the judge has written an embarrassing epilogue to the former president’s story of his career as a New York mogul.

For now, Mr. Trump has spun his legal misfortunes into what he sees as political gold. He has used the cases to falsely portray himself as a victim of a Democratic cabal led by President Biden, and he has campaigned at every courthouse he has visited.

In Justice Engoron’s courtroom, Mr. Trump delivered a rally-made rant from the witness stand, marking the climax of a monthslong proceeding that was alternately stultifying and scintillating. The former president attacked one of Ms. James’s lawyers, saying: “You and about every other Democrat, district attorney, A.G. and U.S. attorney were coming after me from 15 different sides. All Democrats, all Trump haters.”

He did not spare Ms. James herself, or the judge, calling the attorney general a “political hack” and Justice Engoron an “extremely hostile judge.”

Mr. Trump later delivered his own closing statement, calling Ms. James’s fraud accusation a “fraud on me” and saying that the attorney general was the one who “should pay me.”

He generated drama even when not in the spotlight, rolling his eyes at the defense table and muttering to his lawyers. He was particularly enraged by the testimony of his former fixer, Michael D. Cohen , who linked Mr. Trump directly to the fraud scheme.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers succeeded in rattling Mr. Cohen, and asked, based on apparent contradictions in his testimony, that Justice Engoron throw out the case. When the judge declined, Mr. Trump abruptly stood up and stormed out of the courtroom.

The judge largely tolerated Mr. Trump’s behavior, but early on, he barred the former president from attacking his staff members, most prominently his law clerk, who sat near the judge throughout the trial so they could confer. Mr. Trump twice violated that order, prompting $15,000 in fines from the judge.

Courtroom theatrics notwithstanding, the evidence presented was often tedious, consisting of years-old emails and spreadsheets. Through that documentary evidence, Ms. James’s lawyers showed that Mr. Trump’s company had ignored appraisals and manipulated numbers to inflate the value of properties such as golf clubs and office buildings, sometimes to absurd heights.

The most blatant exaggeration was the listed size of Mr. Trump’s triplex apartment in Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue. For years, the former president had valued it as if it were 30,000 square feet, when it was actually 10,996.

In his ruling, Justice Engoron blasted Mr. Trump and the other defendants, saying that misstating the apartment’s size was the only error to which they would admit.

Justice Engoron wrote that he was not looking to “judge morality” — only to find facts and apply the law.

“The court intends to protect the integrity of the financial marketplace and, thus, the public as a whole,” he wrote.

Justice Engoron added that Mr. Trump’s refusal to admit error left him with no choice but to conclude that the former president would continue to commit fraud unless he was stopped.

William K. Rashbaum , Claire Fahy and Maggie Haberman contributed reporting.

Jonah E. Bromwich covers criminal justice in New York, with a focus on the Manhattan district attorney's office, state criminal courts in Manhattan and New York City's jails. More about Jonah E. Bromwich

Ben Protess is an investigative reporter at The Times, writing about public corruption. He has been covering the various criminal investigations into former President Trump and his allies. More about Ben Protess

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  28. Trump Ordered to Pay $355 Million in NY Civil Fraud Trial Ruling

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