Putting a business case together for the web

Interaction between employees is going to have a significant effect on the way we do business. In the same way as email changed the speed at which business is conducted the Intranet is going to become he strategic backbone of the organisation and significantly impact on our effectiveness efficiency and the way we do business.

Traditionally, innovation occurs in products, processes or business models. The latest thinking has been well researched by Gary Hamel in his work The Future of Management. The modern Intranet is not only a tool, but it also enables new ways to manage people. For this reason, we cannot use the past to forecast the future. Our best attempts to make a case for an interactive Intranet are going to have to be around describing the intangible business “steroids” on the Balanced Scorecard as defined by Kaplan and Norton, which leads to business improvements.

You need to put a business case together in order to justify the resources and capital investment necessary to create an Interactive Intranet. This pertains not only the software, but more importantly the design, structure, configuration, workflow mapping, measurement mechanisms.

The Business Case is usually primarily a financial document, however in the case of using digital collaboration tools in order to create a robust Interactive Intranet, the concept is new and because it is an internal tool, companies who are realising the benefits are reluctant to provide evidence of what differences these new tools can make and there are so many hard and soft permutations that it is difficult to quantify the financial implications.

The new way of planning

We have to modify our approach to developing the business case from what we were taught in business school to looking at those variables which, if enhanced using the web's interactive capabilities, will deliver on the business objectives.

We find that the best approach is to:

• Understand the organisational objectives and identify where the interactive Intranet could support delivery;

• Analyse the internal variables (culture, competence and processes) at a high level, which could influence the successful attainment for the business objectives;

• Look at what is happening in the competitive landscape;

• Identify relevant best practice and can significantly enhance competitive advantage, such as Collaboration, Document Management and Innovation etc;

• Identify bottle necks to productivity such as self-service and possibility for efficiency gain with workflow

• Make recommendations for the prioritisation and roll out of the Intranet optimisation strategy.

• We document all the relevant facts and link them together into a cohesive story. This story tells the executives about the what, when, where, how and why.

• Why is the project needed?

• How it will solve the issues or opportunities facing the organisation;

• How the solution addresses the issues or opportunities (benefits);

• What will happen to the business if the project is not undertaken (the do-nothing scenario)?

• What is happening on the competitive landscape?

• What Change Management initiatives must be put into place?

• How we will keep the Intranet dynamic and increase adoption;

• Priorities and timing;

• An indication of how much money, people and time will be needed to deliver the solution and realise the benefits: and

• Suggested Metrics for quantifying success.

By documenting everything together in one story, it is easy to link the issues to the solution and the benefits and identify where the organisation would be without the project.

The development of the overall business case also identifies holes or problems with the solution. Moreover, the organisation will have a way to measure its success. This analysis is also be useful for the leadership team to prioritise this project against the many other initiatives that require capital investment.

The business case provides a consistent message to many different audiences. As a high-level view of the entire project the business case manages the expectations of all the stakeholder divisions affected by the project (customers, management, operations, research & development, service, sales, accounting, finance, etc.).

The length of the business case should be kept to a minimum, ensuring it stays on topic, presents relevant information in a clear and concise manner and it be focused on supporting management in making decisions.