Business case template

Q1: What does a completed business case example look like?

A: Here's a worked example using the same 10 sections as the template above, for a fictional business proposing a dedicated competitive intelligence function. The numbers are illustrative, though the $15,000–$40,000 range for a CI platform license reflects real current market pricing.

Executive summary: Our sales team is losing an estimated 12% of competitive deals due to outdated or missing competitive intel, based on last quarter's win-loss interviews. This business case proposes hiring a dedicated Competitive Intelligence Analyst and licensing a CI platform to close that gap, at a first-year cost of $110,000, with a projected payback inside 9 months.

Current problems: Battlecards are 8+ months old on average and rarely used. Three lost deals in Q3 specifically cited pricing confusion that an up-to-date battlecard would have addressed.

Opportunities on offer: A formal CI function is projected to lift competitive win rate from 38% to 45%, in line with benchmarks from similarly sized SaaS companies running dedicated CI programs.

Finances: CI Analyst salary: $85,000/year. CI platform license: $25,000/year (mid-range for a dedicated platform). Total first-year cost: $110,000. A 7-point win-rate lift on current competitive deal volume is projected to recover roughly $340,000 in year one.

Resource requirements: One new FTE (CI Analyst), reporting into product marketing, plus roughly 10% of an existing PMM's time during onboarding and handoff.

Timelines: Month 1: hire. Month 2: platform implementation and battlecard rebuild. Month 3 onward: live reporting cadence.

Risk assessment: Risk: new-hire ramp time delays impact. Mitigation: ship an interim battlecard refresh using the platform's existing templates in week two, rather than waiting for the full rebuild.

The alternatives: Keeping CI as a part-time responsibility was rejected, since that's the status quo already causing the problem. Outsourcing CI to an agency was evaluated at roughly $60,000/year, but rejected due to a lack of internal, deal-specific context.

That's not every line of a full business case, but it shows how each section moves from a general instruction to a specific, numbers-backed statement, which is the main thing that's hard to picture from a blank template alone.

Q2: What's the difference between a business case, a business plan, and a project charter?

A: They get confused because all three tend to show up early in a project's life, but they answer different questions, for different audiences, in sequence.

Business case: justifies a single proposed investment or initiative to executives, budget holders, and the CFO. Its scope is one decision or project, not the whole business.

Business plan: sets the direction for an entire business or a major new venture, aimed at investors, leadership, and the board. Its scope is the whole business, not a single decision.

Project charter: authorizes and defines a project that's already been approved, aimed at the project team and delivery stakeholders. Its scope is that one approved project's execution, not whether to do it in the first place.

The business plan sets the overall direction. The business case justifies one specific bet within that direction, costs, benefits, and the case for doing it now. The project charter picks up once that bet is approved, and turns it into scope, roles, and a delivery plan. If you're asking “should we do this,” you need a business case. If you're asking “how will we execute this,” you need a charter, and that's the document that follows once this business case gets a yes.

Q3: When do you need a business case?

A: A business case is worth writing when any of the following apply:

• You're requesting a budget or headcount investment above your own spending authority.
• The initiative touches more than one team or function, so people outside your own department need to buy in.
• Leadership is going to ask “what's the ROI,” and you need a documented answer rather than an improvised one.
• You're proposing one option among several credible alternatives, and need to show you've actually weighed the trade-offs.
• The initiative carries meaningful financial, reputational, or operational risk that stakeholders will expect addressed upfront.
• You want a reference document to hold the project accountable to its original goals as it progresses.

If none of these apply, say it's a small, reversible decision that's already within your own budget and authority, a business case is probably overkill. A quick note to your manager will do.