Business case

The term project, due at the end of the course, will be a “business case,” simulating a real-world implementation of an IT project.

You are a business manager with an information system proposal.  How do you convince your boss(es) to approve this project?  You write a business case, of course!  A business case is an internal company document prepared by the sponsors of a project to get approval and funding for their proposal.  To do so, you need to define the project, analyze its scale and scope, identify its business impact, and present the financial and organizational analysis in a convincing fashion.

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In order to do this business case project, you should follow the steps:

(1) Come up with an organization (company, non-profit, governmental agency, etc.), identify a business issue—problem or opportunity— that it faces (e.g., decreasing sales, low customer satisfaction, needed inventory control improvement, new sales opportunity, etc.), and propose an IT project that you would propose to resolve that issue. You are free to choose the organization that you want to set your business case in and the project that you want to work on, within the following guidelines:

  • The organization must be a real one currently in operation. You have to name it; an anonymous company is not acceptable.  (You may be allowed to use a pseudo name for the company as long as you disclose the company identity to the instructor.)
  • You need to know for sure that you can find information about the company. Usually, the company that you work(ed) for or a public company with lots of information and news will serve you well.
  • The project has to be IT-centric; that is, the main resolution to the business issue should involve implementation of some information system(s).
  • The project has to be “large enough.” (You should ask yourself: Would the organization need to do a business case for the project?  For example, buying a $5,000 system in a billion-dollar company probably requires no business cases…)
  • The project has to be current or “futuristic”; no study of history is allowed.

Some random examples: implementing RFID at a show store for inventory control, outsourcing IT at a municipality to save cost, deploying location services with facial recognition at a grocery chain to increase customer consumption, building an e-commerce website for a university to raise revenues, table-side ordering system at a restaurant to increase flow, etc.

(2) Define your work.  What do you have to do for this business case?  What information is needed?  We will go through the writing of a business case in class.

(3) Research and analysis.  Make sure you keep all the references!

(4) Write it up.  Cite all sources.  Organize it in a way that your “bosses” can understand and make decision with.

Please note that although you have to use real company and issue(s), this is still only an exercise.  So it’s perfectly OK to use all publicly available information sources and fill in the gaps with your assumptions and estimates, if you don’t have enough direct access to your “company,” as long as clearly explain how and why you make those assumptions.  But, again, you have to have a real-world set-up: a real company with an identified real issue.  Then put your knowledge from this course, analytic ability, and creativity to work!

Finally, remember that this term project is a business case, NOT an academic research paper.  It is not enough to simply define what your proposal is; you have to explain the how and why your proposed project can be implemented  You need to provide all the key analyses for your “boss” to make a go-or-no-go decision on your proposed project.

The final deliverable of the term project is a complete, written business case, with all the necessary elements and references.  The setting is such that the audience of your business case is the approving managers of your proposal; you are presenting your business case to the senior management for funding your proposed project!  So make sure you address the issues and present your case accordingly.

There is no particular format requirement for your final business case write-up; but in general, use 11- or 12-point font and single-space, and target between 8 and 15 pages long.  Feel free to use any (good) business case template that you find at work or online, but you must make sure that the template you choose allows you to cover all the key elements of the business case you’re writing.  You cannot just start with a random template and fill in blanks! The key is to present your business case as a professional business report/document.

 

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