The structured argument for an investment: costs, benefits, risks and options, assembled to support an approval decision. In most organisations, it is authored by the people who want the answer to be yes.
A business case is presented as analysis, but it functions as advocacy. Understanding that distinction is the difference between reading one and being persuaded by one.
Last reviewed 3 July 2026 · Free and ungated
A client brief to the Global Board puts the case in front of selected senior operators who have approved, and regretted, comparable investments.
Challenge the assumptions before committingA business case is a document that sets out why an organisation should commit money, people or time to a proposed course of action. A complete one covers the problem, the options considered, expected costs and benefits, key risks, and the consequences of doing nothing. It is the standard instrument through which boards and investment committees approve spend.
The economics of authorship matter more than the arithmetic. Benefits are usually estimated by the team sponsoring the project, costs by people who know the approval threshold, and both adjust, rarely through dishonesty, more often through optimism, until the case clears the bar. A board reading a business case is not reading a neutral forecast; it is reading the best available argument for one option, written by its advocates. The document's precision, spreadsheets, NPVs, phased benefits, lends authority the underlying assumptions have not earned.