SM 6026 Final Project
The final project, due at the end of the course, will be a "business case," simulating a
real-world implementation of an IT project.
You are a business manager with an information system proposal. How do you convince
your boss(es) to approve this project? You write a business case, of course! A business
case is an internal company document prepared by the sponsors of a project to get
approval and funding for their proposal. To do so, you need to define the project,
analyze its scale and scope, identify its business impact, and present the financial and
organizational analysis in a convincing fashion.
In order to do this business case project, you should follow the steps:
(1) Come up with a company, a business issue—problem or opportunity— that it faces
(e.g., decreasing sales, low customer satisfaction, needed inventory control
improvement, new sales opportunity, etc.), and an IT project that you would propose to
resolve that issue. You are free to choose the company that you want to set your
business case in and the project that you want to work on, within the following
guidelines:
• The company has to be a real company currently in business. You have to name
it; an anonymous company is not acceptable. (You may be allowed to use a
pseudo name for the company as long as you disclose the company identity to
the instructor.) • You have to have confidence that you can find information about the company.
Usually, the company that you work(ed) for or a public company with lots of
information and news will serve you well. • The project has to be IT-centric; that is, the main resolution to the business issue
should involve implementation of some information system(s). • The project has to be “large enough.” (You should ask yourself: Would the
company need to do a business case for the project? For example, buying a
$5,000 system in a billion-dollar company probably requires no business cases…) • The project has to be current or “futuristic”; no study of history is allowed. Some random examples: implementing RFID at a show store for inventory control,
outsourcing IT at a municipality to save cost, deploying CRM at a grocery chain to
increase customer consumption, building an e-commerce website for a university to
raise revenues, table-side ordering system at a restaurant to increase flow, etc.
(2) Define your work. What do you have to do for this business case? What information
is needed? We will go through the writing of a business case in class.
(3) Research and analysis. Make sure you keep all the references! (4) Write it up. Cite all sources. Organize it in a way that your “bosses” can understand
and make decision with.
Please note that although you have to use real company and issue(s), this is still only an
exercise. So it’s perfectly OK to use all publicly available information sources and fill in
the gaps with your estimates, if you don’t have enough direct access to your “company,”
as long as clearly explain how and why you make those assumptions. But, again, you
have to have a real-world set-up: a real company with an identified real issue. Then put
your knowledge from this course, analytic ability, and creativity to work!
Finally, remember that a business case is NOT an academic term paper. It is not enough
to simply define what your proposal is; you have to explain the how and why. You need
to provide all the key analyses for your “boss” to make a go-or-no-go decision on your
proposed project.
The deliverable of the final project is a complete, written business case, with all the
necessary references. The setting is such that the audience of your business case is the
approving managers of your proposal; you are presenting your business case to the
senior management for funding your proposed project! So make sure you address the
issues and present your case accordingly.
There is no particular format requirement for your final business case write-up; but in
general, use 11- or 12-point font and single-space, and target between 8 and 15 pages
long. Feel free to use any (good) business case template that you find at work or online.
The key is to make it a professional business report/document.
