Developing and Building a Business Case to Hire L&D Consultants
What is a business case?
 Simply stated a business case is a justification to invest resources and capital for a change to improve an organization or business. Typically a business case is comprised of:
- statement of a business problem
- response to that problem: a proposed change
- scope of work for the proposed change
- detailed costs for the proposed change
- what the change will cost - cost benefit analysis
- risks vs. return
- what would happen if the change wasn't made
- alternative ways the problem could be addressed
- how results of change would be measured
- implementation plan for the change
- critical success factors for the change
A business case presents the best of a list of options for resolving an identified business problem along with the business justification to fund that solution.
What is the purpose of developing and building a business case?
 The purpose of developing and building a business case is to examine all aspects of a proposed change to ensure that it merits funding and resources to implement. The business case should provide sufficient detailed analysis that executives, stakeholders, business managers, and the finance department can endorse it. The greater the proposed change impacts the business, the more the business case is likely to be scrutinized for the integrity of the justification it provides. A business case about implementing a new ERP application across all organizations would need to be very comprehensive because it would impact the organization's bottom line: It could generate substantial savings, but it could also cause a loss in employee productivity time. The business case should explain why pluses outweigh minuses.
A business case about a proposed change to transition instructor-led training to eLearning might be smaller in scale, but it still requires diligent analysis. The return on investment that typically drives this change is reduced travel expenses, which can be easily calculated. However, depending upon the desired outcomes expected from training, the costs and risks associated with transitioning to eLearning can be complicated to quantify or qualify. Will eLearning be as effective a means for ensuring mission critical skills are learned? How will customer satisfaction indicators be affected?
Business cases that are adopted, resourced, and funded usually evolve into a project plan and are leveraged and referenced by the PMO office, a program manager, or a project manager throughout the duration of a project.
Theoretically, every project should have a business case. There are times in a project lifecycle when managers must evaluate progress toward accomplishing the change proposed in the business case. There are also times when managers must prioritize the comparative importance of one project versus another, and business cases provide invaluable detail that can inform managers' decisions when resources need to be redirected or budgets need to be reduced.
Every business case has a life cycle. The first part of the cycle involves collecting and assimilating the information that is necessary to propose and defend a proposed change to executives, business managers, and decision makers who will fund and resource it. The second part of the cycle involves the implementation of the business case, that is, its formalization into an action plan. The third part of the cycle involves the ongoing evaluation of the action plan against the proposed change, culminating, hopefully in results that comport with or improve upon the claims made originally in the business case.
Would you recommend drafting a business case for hiring L&D consultants for a project? Why?
 As I stated earlier, every project should have a business case. Some are more formally documented than others, depending upon the importance of the project. For your question, I'll assume that the proposed change is to hire an L&D consultant for a project in lieu of using internal resources, perhaps because the L&D consultant holds specialized knowledge or skills that will increase the success of the project. A business case would evaluate variables that might justify hiring the L&D consultant based upon faster time to completion, better final outcome, and/or less expensive total cost of the project. It would also present the possible risks and alternatives associated with hiring the L&D consultant.
What benefit do you see the business case provides?
The benefit to having a formalized business case is that it provides the means by which everyone in an organization can adopt and support a new project, stay focused during the duration of that project, and celebrate success at the culmination of the project.
What should be included in a business case for the use of contract L&D resources?
A business case starts with the careful articulation of business problem and how that problem is impacting business. The most impactful business problems are those that prevent the organization from achieving its vision, mission, annual goals, and/or business imperatives: for example, the sales force lacks the skills and knowledge necessary to close sales for new products upon which the annual sales goals are depending. In this example, I would create a business case, presenting possible options by which training could resolve the problem efficiently and effectively, considering the objective and all influencing variables. If an L&D consultant offered an advantage toward achieving the resolution proposed in the business case, then I would include justification for the use of an L&D consultant within the business case. That justification would include an explanation of the L&D consultant resource, the summary cost of that resource, the advantages and benefits, and disadvantages and risks of using that resource versus alternatives (e.g. in house/department), the implementation plan, milestones and budget involving the L&D consultant resource, and possible dependencies and contingencies.
What components does a basic business case template include?
Business cases can vary depending upon need and scope, but the basic components of a business case template usually include the following:
- A description of business problem and how it impacts the business
- A proposed solution
- A detailed analysis, including options and costs, for how best to achieve the proposed solution
- An implementation plan
- Critical success factors and measures of success
- Risks and alternatives
What sections would you make sure to include to build a stronger case?
 Fundamentally, the business case is about improving the bottom line. To win the investment approval of business managers, a business case should quantify in dollars and cents the cost of the business problem, in lost revenue or needless expense, and the results of the solution in revenue or expenses saved.
A few additional components that I might expect to see in a well drafted business case include:
- Cost/benefit analysis
- Risk/return assessment
- SWOT analysis
These components can be integrated in the body of the business case or included as appendices.
What role does a business case play in funding and budgeting?
Typically, the executives of a business evaluate on a quarterly basis progress toward achieving annual revenue-expense plans. If projections are substantially off the mark, then the executives task business managers to evaluate projects that are on the dashboard: which are mission critical, and which are nice-to-haves? In these situations, business cases play a valuable role in helping business managers make informed decisions about which projects to continue to fund, and which to cut. Conversely, if executives determine that a business case merits the inclusion of a new project on the dashboard, then its business case helps business managers determine how best to integrate and fund it using the same resources and budget.
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