1. Executive Summary
The executive summary summarises the business case, including your recommendation. It is often best written last, when you’re clear about your recommended course of action, and why. Remember that some decision-makers may only read the executive summary, so you need to make sure that you have included everything relevant.
2. Introduction
This section introduces the business case and briefly sets out what it is about.
3. Statement of the problem
This should be a brief paragraph stating the problem. It should relate back to the organisation’s strategy or vision to demonstrate how solving the problem is important to the organisation.
4. Analysis
This section provides a more detailed account of the problem and why it is important to address it. It should include any analysis you or others have carried out to identify the impact of, or the reasons for, the problem. Hard evidence is always helpful: the number of people affected, or the cost to the company or to its customers. At this point, it is appropriate to mention anyone who has been involved in the work within or outside the organisation.
5. Discussion of Possible Options
You should identify and discuss all possible options for addressing the problem, including doing nothing. For each one, you need to discuss:
- The benefits: why it would be a good idea to do it, including how far it addresses the problem;
- The costs, including resource requirements. It’s often helpful to include figures and graphs here;
- The likely time-scale for the project, and to see a return on the investment, with reasons; and
- The risks, both of doing it, and that might prevent successful implementation.
As far as possible, these should be realistic, and preferably supported by solid data. Where you have estimated, this should be based on a reasonable source, which you should cite if possible.
6. Recommendation
Finally, you should make a recommendation for which option is best, weighing up the costs and benefits.
7. Details of your Chosen Option
Depending on your organisation’s preferences, the nature of the business case, and how you feel about it, you may at this stage wish to include a more detailed consideration of your chosen option. Alternatively, you could include a more detailed analysis in an appendix, including all the supporting data, or provide a later report with all the project details.
If you are including more details, this is a good opportunity to include an outline project plan (see our pages on Project Management and Project Planning for more) and a more thorough and complete risk analysis (see our page on Risk Management for more).
These will demonstrate that you have thought through the project in some detail, and have a reasonable idea of how long it will take, what resources will be necessary, and how to mitigate the risks. This should help you assess whether the organisation is currently capable of carrying out the work, or whether additional resources will be needed.
You should also make some proposals for project governance, including a group to oversee the project and any critical decision points.
Your organisation may require a detailed financial appraisal, including opportunity costs of the project, and some discounting if the payback period is several years. If so, there will almost certainly be detailed guidelines somewhere, including a discounting factor, which you will need to follow.
It is also helpful to include information about outcomes and success criteria:
how will you know that your project has been successful?
8. Conclusion
You should conclude the business case with a reminder of why it is important to address the problem and the action that you wish the reader to take as a result of reading, for example, agree a course of action or approve further work. Make sure that you have made clear why your proposal is the best way of addressing the problem.
The organization I will be using is AT&T. The business issue I would like to resolve is the amount of fraudulent transactions going through in retail stores. I would like to propose a solution of upgrading the point of sale system to become more sophisticated to recognize when a user may be using fictitious information to set up an account. The information I would like to use as my source is similar industries with the same issue, and online sources.
