The 6 Essential Business Case Templates for an Approval-Ready Case
Why Use Business Case Templates?
Creating a business case can often be time-intensive, particularly for those new to the process. This is where business case templates come in. They offer a tried-and-true structure for constructing, assessing, and presenting your business case and its recommendations. Such templates 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.
What Makes a Good Business Case Template?
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.
Benefits of Using Business Case Templates
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:
The 6 Essential Business Case Templates
| Template | Format | Primary purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Business Case Workbook | Plan and develop the analysis | |
| Business Case Document | Word | Write the formal business case |
| Presentation Template | PowerPoint | Present the recommendation |
| Financial Templates | Excel | Calculate NPV, ROI, IRR and payback |
| Project Planning Templates | Excel | Plan activities, milestones and resources |
| Risk Management Templates | Excel | Identify, evaluate and manage risk |
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.
2) Business Case Document Template
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 My Business Case Hub's AI tools generate your Business Case Slide Deck as an initial draft in just 4 minutes, perfectly aligned to your business case topic.
4) Financial Templates
For significant investments and high-risk projects, the preliminary business case 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 costs, 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 is 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 affect the delivery of benefits.
Our My Business Case Hub's AI tools generate an initial draft of your project plan 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 risks.
- Develop a phased implementation approach.
We include the overall project timeline and project activities in a Gantt chart.
6) Risk Management Templates
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.
Example Business Case Documents
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.
How-to Guides
Our guides, tailored for business case development, cover everything from crafting an executive summary to revenue modeling and a comprehensive business case checklist.
AI Tools to Write Business Cases
How AI Tools Support the Templates
- Business Case Generator: Supports the Business Case Document Template by creating an initial structured draft.
- Presentation Generator: Supports the Presentation Template by turning the key points into an initial slide deck.
- Project Plan Generator: Supports the Project Planning Templates by drafting activities, milestones, timing and dependencies.
- Financial Analysis Tool: Supports the Financial Templates by developing an initial analysis of value drivers, costs, benefits, cash flows and financial measures.
- Risk Analysis Tool: Supports the Risk Management Templates by identifying initial risks, ratings and mitigation actions.
AI-generated content is a starting point. Assumptions, evidence, financial calculations, risks, options and recommendations should be reviewed with the project sponsor, finance team and relevant subject-matter experts. The final business case must meet your organisation’s governance, assurance and decision-making requirements.
How to Build an Approval-Ready Business Case
Getting Your Business Case Approved
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 obtain 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, they 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 funding.
Our Five Steps Business Case Framework is a simple, easy-to-follow and effective way of developing approval-ready business cases for the board, the executive team, the business owners, external stakeholders and investors.
How do you justify a business case?
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 value drivers that influence 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.
Successful Business Case Examples
Business Case Success Factors
Importantly, we framed each business case for approval by making the investment decision explicit and presenting the evidence, value and delivery confidence decision-makers needed to support the recommended option.
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 strengthened these business cases by including solid financial analysis, such as Net Present Value, Internal 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 mitigation actions to increase the project’s overall success.
Strengthen Your Business Case Before You Submit It
The Approval-Ready Toolkit helps you assess and strengthen the strategic logic, options, benefits, financial analysis, risks, implementation planning and recommendation before submitting your case for decision-maker review.
Use the practical checklists and guidance to identify what is already strong, uncover critical gaps and prioritise the work still required to move your business case towards approval readiness.
Explore Toolkit
Here's how - download proven, customizable business case templates.
Explore Templates
In the live workshops, assess what is already strong, uncover the critical gaps and create a practical action plan for moving your business case towards executive, CFO or board consideration.
Explore the Masterclass
We bring over 25 years of experience in improving Business Cases.
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Before You Embark on Your Business Case Journey
Download our Free Business Case Guide to get started.
