Building a Successful Business Case

About

This seminar will demonstrate how you can deliver credible, fact-based explanations for a recommended course of action. You will find out how to prepare business cases that are credible, accurate and of practical value, while learning to identify the associated financial costs, risks and returns.

Learning outcomes

• Understand the vital components of a business case
• Discover how to present a clear, concise, fact-based case for your project
• Evaluate techniques for building credibility as you prepare your case
• Prepare a comprehensive cost/benefit study
• Understand how to measure the full range of business benefits - even the so-called “intangibles”
• Examine appropriate techniques for preparing a financial justification for your project
• Understand how to calculate payback, cash flow rate of return, accounting rate of return, NPV and IRR
• Learn how to package and present your business case results for maximum impact
• Discover how to prepare a concise Executive Summary
• Improve the odds of securing approval for your project

Who should attend

• Project Directors
• Project Managers
• Senior Managers
• Strategic Planners
• Business Analysts
• PR Managers
• Marketing Managers
• IT Managers
• Product Managers

Including:

• Those responsible for project or product proposals
• Those who propose PR plans
• Those who propose IT acquisitions or changes
• Those responsible for capital spending decisions
• Sales Managers who need to show customers that a decision to buy is a good business decision

Testimonials

Past participants of this course have said:
"Logical presentation, demystified the unknown"
Accountant, Ministry of Foriegn Affairs and Trade

"Increased my knowledge of building a business case"
Warren Myers, Business Development Manager, Foodstuffs Wellington

"Detailed, but not too much.  All jargon explained"
Richard Conway, Chief Executive Officer, Urbanplus

“Warren was totally familiar with the subject and explained everything simply. He held my attention for the two days and no unnecessary jargon was used.”
Mike Fleming, Business Analyst, MAF Quarantine Service

“Extensive coverage of very pertinent topics. Great to have all that material in the workbook.”
Zane Martin, Commercial Support, Coca-Cola Amatil (NZ)

“Warren was very experienced and informative.”
Kelli-Jo Walker, Business Development, iVistra Technology

“Good pace, good level of detail, very well-structured and professionally presented.”
Paul Kettel, Senior Business Analyst, Beca Carter Holdings & Ferner Ltd

"Really got a lot out of financial elements of a business case, framework is great to work to and use also"
"All presenters good, Warren excellent, made it "real world" and practical"
Mike Pook, GM Retail, Ezibuy Ltd

Outline

Day one

8.30 Registration

Examining and understanding the components of a business case
• An introduction to developing a business case
• Defining the purpose of your business case: What are your objectives?
• Identifying the information that the decision-makers will need
• Establishing the scope and boundaries of your case
• What costs and benefits will be included and over what time period?

Examining the inter-relationship between risk management and building a business case
• Identifying and assessing operational risks
• Determining the areas of greatest risk within your business case
• Risk classification and grouping of risks
• Determining whether internal controls are appropriate to achieve compliance objectives
• Summarising the risks and ROI

Conducting a cost/benefit analysis
• Techniques for selecting the evaluation criteria
• Weighing the financial and non-financial benefits of each alternative
• Choosing the appropriate analysis period for benefits and costs
• Conducting practical comparative and tradeoff analyses
• Defining the cost of ownership
• Summarising the results in one page

What’s the ROI? How to quantify real value
• What is ROI and where does financial ROI fit into a business case?
• Techniques for quantifying value
• Creating and calculating ROI metrics
• Creating non-financial ROI metrics
• Calculating financial ROI

Calculating and interpreting traditional financial metrics
• Selecting the appropriate financial analysis to include in your case
• Demonstrating how and why the “viable alternatives” were selected
• Payback period
• Internal rate of return (IRR)
• Cash flow rate of return
• Accounting rate of return
• Net present value (NPV)

Day Two

Using cost-volume profit analysis in a business case
• Using cost-volume profit analysis to help you examine your business operations
• Understanding the relationship between your fixed and variable costs, your volume and your profits
• Examining break-even analysis
• Examining contribution margin analysis
• Understanding operating leverage
• Profit and loss statements

Evaluating the finance options for the proposed investment
• Leasing vs buying
• Working capital
• Cash budgeting

Techniques for preparing budgets and forecasts
• Accurately identifying unrealistic targets
• Pinpointing the interplay between budgets and forecasts
• Successfully integrating forecasting and budgeting as essential tools for measuring performance
• Incorporating the variables to establish accurate indicators and benchmarks
• Creating an adaptive performance measurement framework

Packaging and presenting the business case
• Organising information and structuring your business case
• Communicating what decision-makers want to know in a language they understand
• Writing powerful objective statements that leave no doubt about the value
• Using recommendations and conclusions effectively
• Should you include an executive summary?
• Choosing the most important facts and findings for the case summary

Facilitator

Warren Meyer, Senior Manager, Private Client Services , PricewaterhouseCoopers

Warren is a Senior Manager in the Private Client Services area, taking responsibility for consulting. Warren’s  consulting has included business merger feasibility studies including the creation of a business case for presentation to the board of a publicly listed company, relating to the distribution of product. He has also prepared capital purchase plans which include preparing and submitting cashflows and business plans to financiers and IT project plans, including successful proposals relating to the purchase of financial systems.

Warren’s experience includes business advice on a variety of accounting, taxation and IT issues. His industry experience includes transport and logistics operations, professional service organisations, produce import and export activities and the printing industry.

Warren has extensive experience in presenting seminars and has conducted training for both internal staff and external clients.

In-house Training

Prices and Registration

* Early bird price available when you register and pay before the dates listed.