Career Success For Accountants

8 Reasons Why Business Cases Get Rejected

If you are a manager or leader, there will be times when you need to produce a business case for funding. When you present a business case, you are asking the organisation to commit to potentially huge amounts of initial, and possibly ongoing, funding.

So what are the common reasons why business cases get rejected?

  1. They fail to convincingly make the case for change. In other words, they don’t have a compelling enough answer to the question, “Why do we need to say yes?”
  2. They don’t represent good value for money or quite simply are not affordable.
  3. They are too complex and fail to get the key messages across clearly and concisely.
  4. They don’t demonstrate to decision makers that there is sufficient capability to project manage the case to successful completion.
  5. The benefits that will arise are poorly presented.
  6. They carry too high a level of risk or uncertainty.
  7. They are out of line with organisational priorities.
  8. They don’t have the support of all the stakeholders who are needed to make it happen.

The truth is that as a leader or manager you need to be able to create and present the case for resources compellingly, otherwise it is always going to be a struggle to delivers the results that you know you are really capable of delivering.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to become highly effective leaders and managers. He invites you to take advantage of his free audio e-course Leadership Success at www.goalsandachievements.co.uk

About the Author Duncan Brodie

Since 2006 I’ve worked with in excess of 8,000 accountants and professionals in workshops, seminars and one to one helping them land their next jobs and become better leaders, presenters and business partners. Before that I spent 25 years in accountancy climbing the career ladder from Payments Clerk to FD. I’m a CIMA Fellow, Certified Professional Coach and Team Coach Facilitator.

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44 comments
Ron Rosenhead says 5 August 2011

No problem Duncan with what you write except that there are TOO many projects that have no business case at all. I remind people who come to our courses that not every idea is a good idea and the idea needs testing – via the business case.

To get rejected, they have to be written. I see too many projects where this is not the case.

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