Options appraisal and business case
It is all too common to see the process of developing the business case as a paper exercise designed simply to demonstrate the validity of a course of action you have already decided on. This is a wasted opportunity - done properly an options analysis may highlight a way of delivering the same outcomes in a way that better fits with your budget, risk appetite, wider strategy and organisational context and will save you from inevitable pitfalls and costs further down the line.
Our offering
We can help you take a proportionate approach to developing a business case. It is not an efficient use of resources to over egg the pudding for every decision – a disciplined but uncomplicated review of the available options against some straightforward criteria can get to a swift answer and then you can move your energy and resources towards implementation with confidence. In some cases, where a major investment or change is being considered, the structure of a full business case process is critical – not for the paper trail – but to allow the right conversations to take place and thinking to mature over time. At its heart, a business case is just a series of important questions: Why do we want to do something different or new? What do we hope to achieve? What are the different options we have to do that? What are the implications of those options in terms of risk, reward, reputation, feasibility, management resource, time to deliver and overall likelihood of success? And most importantly, should we do this? It’s ok for the answer to be no.
Our approach
We will help you to:
Focus on the real questions and concerns you want to cover during the business case process, to give yourself and your senior leadership confidence in progressing with a proposed course of action.
Use an engaged process to constantly reflect, refine and challenge – bringing thinking of staff, managers and executives along with the process and improving the answer to the question.
Understand the variety and opportunities presented by all of the different possible options and how they fit with your needs and requirements – it may be that the assumed approachisn’t the answer to your problem, but something much better is.