The 6 Essential Templates and AI Tools
Creating a business case can often be time-intensive, particularly for those new to the process. This is where business case templates and AI Tools come in. They offer a tried-and-true structure for constructing, assessing, and presenting your business case and its recommendations. Such templates and AI Tools are invaluable across various projects. Some entities even have distinct business case formats tailored for diverse project types and sizes. A good business case document succinctly conveys recommendations and strategic reasoning, providing ample information for informed decision-making.
Get the 6 Essential Business Case Templates here.
A comprehensive business case template encapsulates:
- Strategic justifications for the project.
- Evaluated business options, including fundamental choices like "do nothing," "alter something," or "try another approach."
- Both project and operational costs and timelines.
- Tangible benefits.
- Investment assessment or cost-benefit analysis.
- Potential risks and their countermeasures.
Moreover, a robust business case can spotlight your project amid the organization's myriad priorities, possibly being the pivotal factor in securing approval and funding.
So, how does one craft an outstanding business case with standout recommendations? Begin by presenting evidence and proposals that management can rally behind.
Let's delve into the process of writing a business case with our AI Business Case Tools and templates:
1) Business Case Workbook
Our Workbook encompasses all reliable templates and worksheets, aiding you in planning, structuring, and composing your business case. Additionally, it offers guidance on infusing more rigor into your analysis and suggestions, ensuring your stakeholders are convinced of the recommendation's merit.
The second template, the business case document template, saves precious time. Instead of starting from scratch, this structured document focuses on only the pertinent details essential for sound recommendations. This structured layout ensures alignment with organizational priorities, promising value for investment and a manageable risk level.
The Business Case Template (Microsoft Word document 18 pages) contains:
- Executive Summary
- Project Definition
- Business Requirements
- Evaluation of Options
- Preferred Option
- Strategic Logic of Project
- Benefits
- Risks
- Project Stages & Duration
- Financial Analysis
- Estimate of Project Team Resources
- Project Authorisation
- Appendices
3) Business Case Presentation Template
- Effective presentation techniques.
- Alignment of suggestions with business goals.
- Identifying and addressing key stakeholders.
If the presentation fails to inspire confidence, your business case might not see the light of day.
Our AI Tool the My Business Case Generator, generates your Business Case Slide Deck as an initial draft in just 4 minutes, perfectly aligned to your business case topic.
For significant investments and high-risk projects, the preliminary business is the first step in making the full business case. Preliminary business cases determine if the full business case is required, where the project merits are investigated in full detail. The preliminary business case cost estimates have a 20% tolerance, whereas the full business case costings have less than a 10% tolerance.
Cost-benefit analysis is one of the most critical parts of a business case as it is often the costs or savings a project yields which achieves the final approval to go forward. We use a set of discounted cash flow templates for financial, scenario and sensitivity analysis.
The detailed financial spreadsheets show precisely what cost and benefit information, and evidence is required; so that you do not miss any of the hidden costs or benefits.
The templates calculate the discounted cash flow for determining:
- Return on investment (ROI)
- Operating, investing & financing cash flows
- Net present value
- Internal rate of return
- Payback period
- Profit-to-investment ratio
The financial templates should include a business case financial analysis summary dashboard with the scenario and sensitivity analysis for evaluating the financial implications and increasing the return on investment.
5) Project Planning Templates
Before diving into your business case, meticulous planning is indispensable. Our business case planning templates streamline the process, allowing for efficient task allocation, tracking, and reporting.
We scope our business case activities, break it down into manageable components; then schedule and assign the tasks needed to complete your business case. You might be surprised at how quickly you can plan, allocate and report on the tasks to complete the business case.
The project planning templates include:
- Project management dashboard
- Project action plan
- Project status report
- Investment project plan
The Investment Project Plan
It's essential to outline the project's key milestones and describe the major activities to achieve the deliverables and milestones. The business case needs to consider other interrelated projects' dependencies and show how such dependencies make impact benefits.
Our AI Tool the My Business Case Generator, generates your Project Plan an initial draft in just 5 minutes, perfectly aligned to your business case topic.
Simply Set the Duration for Each of the Tasks, Add Any Dependencies.
We use the work breakdown structure to focus on the project deliverables and measurable milestones.
This helps to:
- Estimate the cost of the business case recommendation.
- Establish dependencies.
- Determine the project’s timeline and develop a schedule.
- Assign responsibilities and clarify roles.
- Identify risk.
- Develop a phased implementation approach.
We include the overall project timeline and project activities in a Gantt chart.
Every project, no matter how meticulously planned, carries inherent risks. Our risk management templates offer a roadmap to navigate these potential pitfalls, ensuring the business case's desired outcomes and benefits are realized.
Risk planning helps identify the potential problems that could cause trouble for the recommended project. You can use the risk management plan to identify, evaluate, and plan for potential issues. It's a roadmap that shows you the significant risks that need to be managed to achieve the business case outcome and benefits.
The business case templates should include a risk management plan that sets out how risks will be managed in the recommended project.
The risk management plan details your strategy for dealing with risks specific to your business case.
Our risk management template guides you through the steps involved in preparing the risk management plan; it helps you:
- Identify the risks.
- Analyze each risk.
- Evaluate and prioritize the risks.
- Recommend the actions to treat each risk.
- Monetize the risks in business cases.
- Monitor and review the risk during the implementation of the project.
The risk assessment map provides an overview of the risk ratings, plus a management matrix for identifying and assessing risks, describing mitigation strategies, and monitoring control efforts.
Sample business case documents can help you write a clear and concise business case.
Example business case documents include the executive summary, the strategic logic, the financial projections, scenarios and risk management for implementing a specific project.
This way, you can write better business cases after using this resource.
Our guides, tailored for business case development, cover everything from crafting an executive summary to revenue modeling and a comprehensive business case checklist.
1. Rapid Business Case Creation:
Forget the long hours or days previously spent drafting a business case. With our Rapid Business Case Creation tool, you can generate a fully customized business case draft tailored to your specific topic in just 5 minutes. This tool not only saves time but ensures that your document is structured and detailed, aligning perfectly with industry standards and "business case template" expectations.
2. Fast Project Plan:
Project planning is now a breeze with our Fast Project Plan tool. In merely 3 minutes, create a comprehensive project plan complete with instructions. This AI tool simplifies the planning process, allowing you to focus on strategy and execution rather than getting bogged down in the minutiae of plan creation.
3. Persuasive Slide Deck:
The ability to persuade and engage stakeholders is crucial. Transform your business case into a compelling slide presentation with our Persuasive Slide Deck tool in just 5 minutes. Tailored to highlight your business case's key points, this tool ensures your presentation aligns with your goals, making it an indispensable asset for winning support and approval.
Dive into the future of business case development with "My Business Case Generator." Streamline your workflow, enhance your persuasiveness, and achieve faster approvals with our cutting-edge AI tools. Click here to start generating your custom business case template, project plan, and slide deck now.
The key to developing a solid business case is a fundamental understanding of how each of its sections fits together. Creating the business case is also a collaborative effort between stakeholders involved in project delivery and those responsible for the outcome.
Take the time at the beginning of the process to critically examine the business need and outcome, including the competitive environment, the strategic fit, the business needs and the scope.
To get the approval for your business case, you will need to demonstrate why the project is required, quantify the business value, and detail how these benefits will be realized. The project's reasons and benefits may seem perfectly obvious to you and others intimately involved; however, it may not be so obvious to the decision-makers and other stakeholders.
When the time is taken to develop a solid business case, the investment proposal is much more informed. In addition, the high-quality business case makes your project stand out amongst the organization's competing priorities; it may be the key to getting approval and the project's finances.
Our Five Steps Business Case Framework is a simple, easy-to-follow and effective way of developing your business cases for the board, the executive team, the business owners, external stakeholders and investors.
As a business leader or professional, you know that business cases are used to evaluate and justify projects and decide whether to accept or reject them.
Suppose you are in charge of a business case. In that case, you will need to quantify the financial, strategic and social value this project represents for your organization.
To inform better decision-making, you will need to consider the following:
- How to quantify and calculate the value of an investment.
- How to determine the value of the project.
- How to calculate the cost of the project.
- How to calculate the return on investment (ROI) for the project.
- The financial analysis and modelling used.
- How to embed corporate responsibility performance into the recommendation.
Quantifying the business benefits is central to strategic planning, cost-benefit analysis, and business case analysis. Therefore, it is critical to gain a solid understanding of the main drivers of the business case.
To develop a robust business case, you must model the business case drivers that drive the strategic and operational outcomes and monetize the financial outcomes and benefits.
The business case drivers:
- These key inputs and activities drive the business case's strategic, operational, and financial outcomes.
- They have a significant impact on outcomes & benefits.
- They are controllable by the business case.
- Before building a financial model, you will need to model the business drivers to evaluate the relative strengths and weaknesses to make the best choices about the business case.
Our How to Quantify the Financial Value in Business Cases article will explain how to do that.
- Improving the Customer Experience.
- Accelerated Investment to Enter New Markets.
- Equity Investment to Scale up the Business.
- Customer Service Improvement.
- Service Planning to Meet the Population Growth.
- Business Expansion to Enable Revenue Growth.
These six business case examples were successful because we clearly articulated the following:
The Recommendations and the Investment Decision:
- We framed the recommendations for the decision-makers in a way that clearly communicates the value of getting the approval to proceed.
The Strategic, Financial and Societal Benefits:
- We used an evidence-based approach to recommend the preferred option.
- We focused on business benefits realization.
The Options Analysis and Scenario Analysis:
- We strategically evaluated the shortlisted options.
The Project Financials:
- We strengthen these business cases by including solid financial analysis, such as Net Present Value, Rate of Return, Profit to Investment Ratio and Discounted Pay-Back Period.
Deliverability and the Implementation Plan:
- We developed a feasible project plan, planning each milestone and addressing the implementation risks.
The Risks:
- We identified, analyzed and evaluated the major risks, recommending mitigating actions to increase the project’s overall success.
Download our Free Business Case Guide to get started.
Here's how - download proven, customizable business case templates.
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