One of the toughest aspects within Innovation is making the Business Case.
Much of the information is imperfect, the returns are often fuzzy and unclear in the early stages and the doubters line up ready to block and deter new ideas from entering the commercialization process.
Justifying new innovation can be often really hard to make for others.
How can you reduce down many of these uncertainties?
Often what is missing is ensuring the innovation business case takes a clear methodical approach and builds the arguments up in a sound structured way.
Far too many cases are based on emotion and gut feel. Some of these clearly work but an awful lot get lost along the way, especially in the more structured organisation.
So often good ideas are ‘killed’ because the Business Case was not as well thought through as possible. It simply became the necessary chore at the end of a set of events that were in themselves a mountain to climb.
It is putting together the best possible business case is the last nine yards, sometimes the hardest to achieve but the accumulation of all your efforts rest on this document in many cases.
A good business case for innovation concepts needs to show the areas of clear discussion, not just ‘brushing over’ the unknowns but attempting to quantify and qualify them as best as you can with the (imperfect) information to hand.
A business case needs to ensure conclusions do reduce down the more ’emotive’ parts, so as to allow the ‘idea or concept’ to firm up, stand tall and be seen for their real merits.
Deep conviction needs to come through when there are a number of unknowns to allow for genuine discussion and growing identification in solving issues and evaluating risks as a common point.
We often do miss vital steps or forget to view the issues from all our stakeholders’ perspectives also.
We write often the business case from our own perspectives not from others, especially not from the consumer insights that might have started us off on the given journey in the first place.
We also need to reflect and account for the multiple stakeholders, both internally and externally, that this idea is trying to address through the innovation concept we are proposing.
Knowing the issues, reducing often the ‘noise and distractions’ and making the professional case is what we need to do to attract commitment to the projects we are working upon, we also need to consciously work on keeping it on track. This all helps.
So what is the suggested approach we should be taking?
Firstly I would argue each organization needs a clear systematic model that you go through, that everyone goes through, and that takes the business case through a structured step-by-step approach.
It needs to allow enabling arguments based on facts to build and grow, to lay out challenges and uncertainties. This enables that everyone involved can see the same steps of the approach taken in making their business case.
Transparency gives similarity and the ‘common’ business evaluation provides a consistency of approach to all cases, irrespective across the organization. It gives everyone the same platform to justify their business case.
Within this step-by-step approach, you do need to require a comprehensive case building technique.
This building step technique will help move you towards a compelling business case that provides all stakeholders with their essential information in this more transparent, consistent process for everyone.
The Business Case needs to include within its proposal:
- There will be different creativity tools to start the process but the need is to structure the project information on a comparable basis. This requires laying out often difficult definitions of success- It is providing suggested guidelines to individuals listening to attempt to get everyone on the ‘same page’ so as to judge the case.
- It needs to provide different options for alternatives to ‘getting ready’ within the case and what these might mean. Then it clearly points to where these issues can be possibly resolved in future resolution, commitments and resources. Innovation in its early stages is full of open questions and the hard work is trying to answer these as best you can, ignoring the difficult issues does not help your case I would argue, it is better to address them as best you can.
- Then we move into building the business case preparation, cost and benefit analysis (where we can), clarifying opportunity needs (for instance unmet customer needs), offering different factor analyses, assessing stakeholder interests, and clarifying uncertainties where you can.
- The next group of factors to consider is making clear assessments of competition, outlining the tactical moves to be considered for market attractiveness, the implications, the ability to execute and what business model does the business case take to provide the fit and attract the commitment. Finally how to stage this- through piloting, trails or moving towards full-blown commercialisation and what each will entail in commitment and resources.
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Lastly, to go back through the Business Case elements to present a format that builds up and breaks down the case logically with the best available inputs that include the unique selling proposition and the future resources needed to translate this case into a winning commercial prospect. do lay out clear timelines and milestones and the projected financial and commercial value it would provide as best as you can. do remember discussing the unknowns actually does reduce conflicts and allows for more combining best opinions and shared thinking.
Moving an idea into a mainstream activity is one of the hardest aspects to achieve
Making the innovation business case a winning one is not down to luck, it is down to a systematic approach to building up a compelling case for this.
Approaching this is a well-structured, methodical way that takes out much of the guesswork and the emotions if it is seen as logical, well thought through and defined. Innovations are often ‘fuzzy’ but adding to this with a poorly crafted approach opens the door to disappointment.
Making the case in a well-structured process gives greater opportunity for identification and realisation. Crafting a compelling business case based on the best available facts and raising open issues allows for a mature discussion of its merits.
Hiding facts, poorly laying out the business case, and not putting enough thinking into this final document are often more the reason for an idea being ‘killed off’ than you think.
Do you have a good innovation business case structure?
