A Structured Approach to the BI Business Plan

Capturing business opportunities, risks, and financial value in addition to technology total cost of ownership

One of Baseline’s core principles is to incorporate performance metrics into every data-enabled solution – to define success and evaluate results. There is no better place to start than with a solid business intelligence (BI) business case.

Baseline is often tapped by managers on both the business and IT side to develop a business plan, determine costs, evaluate benefits, and analyze Return on Investment (ROI). The BI Business Case delivers a rigorous agenda and financial assessment of the opportunities, technology costs, and incremental and ongoing resource requirements for development and maintenance of your BI program.

» Your Challenges
» The Problem
» The Baseline Approach
» Your Value
» Why Baseline

Your Challenges

• High risk, high reward for BI investments
• Keen competition for scare corporate resources
• Understanding the complete value and cost model—both a business and IT view
• Measuring and proving the post-investment value and benefits

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The Problem

Making the investment decision—monitoring the return

When it comes to business intelligence (BI) and data warehousing, many companies have one or more failures under their corporate belts. BI or data warehouse development projects constantly start and stop; someone is always questioning the value; and, one or more BI initiatives have been “de-scoped” or cancelled.
With investments in BI initiatives in the tens of millions of dollars, and competition keen for scare corporate resources, executives are demanding solid business plans before they approve new capital expenditures or maintain existing budget levels. They seek assurance of business value in pro-forma statements, staffing estimates, and cost and payback analysis. They expect a business plan to lay out a deliverable timetable that clearly addresses business opportunities, identifies risks, and shows value.
A structured approach to business case development can also help you address the following needs:

• Data warehouse project costs that exceed the perceived business value.
• Business sponsors who are unsure of appropriate investment levels for BI.
• BI development teams who never get funding because their projects are low on the IT priority list.
• Stakeholders who go outside the company for BI delivery because IT cannot fulfill their requests.
• Different organizations with conflicting objectives for BI and the data warehouse.
• Business users who complain that IT doesn’t understand their needs, but aren’t able to clearly communicate their business plans or strategies to provide IT with requirements.

ROI Survey Results

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The Baseline Approach

Cost/benefit analysis of discrete BI applications using both business and IT costs

BI Business Case Development is usually an outgrowth of Baseline’s Business Discovery and BI Application Portfolio offerings. It quantifies the ROI of discrete BI application opportunities, generating a richer business plan and providing a clear roadmap for execution.

Using the business planning project as a backdrop, Baseline can secure time to interview business people—a luxury not always granted to IT staff. These interviews include structured questions for different “levels” of stakeholder, ensuring a comprehensive picture of needs and priorities in the business case. Baseline uses weighted metrics to prioritize and quantify one or more “opportunities” in terms of both “hard” and “soft” ROI.

The BI Business Case deliverable includes the following:

• Executive summary.
• Description of business needs, objectives, implementation roadmap, targeted users, architecture requirements, and key performance indicators.
• Staffing and resource requirements.
• Benefits including both qualitative factors and financial analysis – using client’s preferred evaluation measures, such as NPV, ROI, or break-even.
• Pro-form budget including revenue, capital, and expense projections.
• Plan risks.
• Key assumptions and dependencies.

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Your Value

A unit of decision-making for program sponsorship

The BI Business Case identifies your business opportunities in terms of benefits and financial impact. The BI Business Case can serve as an educational tool to highlight the importance of BI to reduce costs and increase revenues. As such, it becomes the unit of decision making for moving forward with BI. The rigorous analysis outlines benefits, costs and payback details, answers objections, and secures program sponsorship.

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Why Baseline

A business-driven approach to predicting and measuring ROI

Because Baseline considers BI to be a business solution, we approach business planning with a requirements-driven focus – a sharp contrast to other consultants or vendors who often take a technology-focused approach to ROI.

Moreover, our business case analysis doesn’t just concentrate on IT-centric Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). We include business-centric costs and revenue generation. By focusing on both “hard” and “soft” ROI, we ensure that business intelligence is proactive and strategic—not merely focusing on incremental cost savings, but focusing on new business initiatives that support your company’s evolution.

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