Building Better Business Cases for IT Investments

While most organizations today demand a robust business case justifying investments in information technology (IT), our research, which includes a survey of over 100 organizations, indicates that few organizations are satisfied with their ability produce such a case. In particular, they are concerned about identifying and quantifying the expected benefits. Surprisingly, many organizations don’t demand rigorous evidence to support their investment – which is perhaps why in many cases benefits are overstated in order to gain approval. We present an approach to building a business case that differs from conventional approaches in that different types of benefits are recognised, measures are identified for all benefits and evidence is sought for the size or magnitude of the benefits. A benefit owner is also identified for each benefit, to ensure commitment and aid benefit delivery. Benefits are explicitly linked to both the IT and the business changes that are required to deliver them and responsibilities are also identified for making these business changes. The wider role for the business case is also discussed. Traditionally, the main purpose in building the business case for an IS/IT project has been to obtain approval for the financial spend. However, a comprehensive and robust business case is also necessary to: enable priorities to be set among different investments for funds; identify how the combination of IT and business changes will deliver each of the benefits identified; ensure commitment from business managers and importantly to create a basis for review of the investment when it is complete. Overall, the findings of our research show that organizations which adopt our suggested approaches to building a business case are more successful in delivering value from their IT investments.