Product Strategy and Marketing Strategy Services

Think positively about the benefits and values that your idea brings to your customer

Benefits Case and Business Case often get confused and often the Benefits Case believed to be the Business Case

In our view, the Benefits case is produced much earlier in the process and has a small amount of financial information to underpin it and is high level, light touch  Firstly, the financial detail to build a robust business case early in the process is probably lacking much of the detail required.  Secondly, it must provide real examples as to genuine benefits (cashable, tangible and non- cashable) and these are best seen through the lenses of people and what value it brings, in our view. 

The Benefits Case for a new line of biodegradable water bottles would explain the positive impacts on the environment, health benefits of drinking water, that it should increase market share, increase our brand image, become popular on a social media.  It would have, a preliminary figures, google research market is $300bn in 2022, with just 0.01% market share we make p.a 

Much easier to define? 

A Benefits Realisation Framework needs to be developed

The product often doesn’t need all the bells and whistles. 

 You must look at your product from the eyes of your potential buyers -> will it address their needs and wants? How is your product going to help them achieve their goals?  How much value will it will add value to them?

Two key concepts to consider (there are many more!)

1 The Minimum Marketable Features (MMF)

 The least amount of functions product must be offer for a customer to see any value 

2. The Minimum Viable Product MVP

The point when you’ve spent the least amount of effort, time and money but have something that is usable (even a prototype) and should help answer the question: Is this the right product to build?

Getting early market feedback is key

Even less than favourable feedback is invaluably positive, as it flushes out the reasons why people might not buy and avoids significant wasted investment.  

Is it the price, the features of the product, who is likely to buy the product that is causing concern? 

Risk Management (along with Assumptions, Issues and Dependencies - RAIDs) is a simple but powerful technique to bringing a pro-active approach to ensure your project, product or business itself grows successfully

It's your MOT, Highway Code, Traffic Report & SatNav

But its also often not thought about, nor used (!) 

We ask ourselves why?  

Firstly, RAID logs take time to develop and if not refreshed at regular intervals, they take ages to update. Secondly, they can become unwieldy, especially if a lot of information is dumped onto the RAID log.  It is no longer a "log" but a complete Statement of Works

Thirdly, people don't like to be challenged or scrutinised (who wants to be shown up in front of their boss?)

Lastly, its not exciting - its very fact based and critical 

• Consider the Risks and how mitigate them
• Note Assumptions, challenge flaws, weak points
• Develop action plan to resolve Issues
• Work out what is Dependent on something else

Image this ....

Would you drive, without a document advising the Risks and knowing how to react before the risk is an issue? 

A Highway Code is like a risk log, helping you anticipate future hazards enabling you to take mitigating action

How much detail is in your RAID log?

Does your MOT say "Tyre Tread Low" or does it say "Use the Internet to find a local garage, book an appointment, check your tyre size, think about time off work?"

How realistic are your Assumptions?

We assume it takes 20 minutes to the Airport. Did anyone challenge that's its a lot more in the rush hour.  Does the traffic report validate that assumption?  If the assumption is incorrect, what sort of issue may entail?

It may not be fun, but success is more likely than without

Does everyone enjoy to learn to drive? The exiting part is actually passing the test and driving yourself, but we go through the disciplines of learning to drive for the same reasons the discipline of RAID management should occur.  Would you be happy if the roads were full of drivers without going through the basic discipline expected?

Two questions frequently asked

 How much does a business case need to contain?

What does a business case need to contain?

There are thousands of examples and templates of business cases on the internet and you can become totally overwhelmed with what needs to be done.  A good  business case will have at least these key elements

Executive Summary - Strategy & Vision - Rationale - Context - Benefits - Success Criteria - Market Analysis - Competitor Analysis - SWOT & RAID Analysis - Stakeholder Requirements - Roadmap - Marketing & Sales Strategy - Communication Plan - Project Plan - Scope and Governance AND Financial Case

A Rough Business Case is needed at first with some of the above, but MUST be backed with a Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) Financial Case 

You can spend time an effort on market research, development of prototypes etc. and a good business case will take days to produce, but ultimately, will it make money and deliver a positive Return on Investment in reasonably short time?

Ultimately the main flinch test is a Financial Case

Use market feedback to help inform your business case, as you should now have a feel what features bring the real value and helps inform whether this is a premium priced feature, or an expected given, indicating the price range your buyers might consider

Consider the sensitivities.  A very powerful part of the financial case should include sensitivities analysis.  This often is overlooked as adding a layer of complexity.  

However, as simple 3*3 array (9 cells) to look at costs doubling, costs halving, revenues doubling, revenues halving, with the remaining cells being revenue and cost forecast can quickly show whether the model is robust to change or sensitive to change.  All significant parameters  (big ticket items, high volume items) should be subject to sensitivity analysis and see how the end result varies. 

Significant variances are high risk need a lot more focus