DIRECT ANSWER
The document has to survive a meeting you are not in. Buyers spend just 5% of their time with any single sales rep (Gartner), so more than 90% of the buying decision happens without you in the room. Write for the skeptical finance stakeholder who reads it on page three, not for the champion who already believes.
Your champion is sold. They believe in the product. They believe in the price. They want to move forward.
Then they take it internal. And you are not there.
The business case you sent gets read by someone who has already rejected three vendor decks this quarter. They read page one, skip to the numbers, and look for reasons to say no.
Most business cases are written as though the seller will be in the room to explain them. The ones that actually move deals are written for the room the seller never enters.
Step 1: Who actually reads this document?
Not your champion. Your champion forwards it.
It gets read by:
The CFO or finance stakeholder who signs off on budget
A skeptical peer who questions every vendor claim
Someone who joined the evaluation late and missed the discovery calls
The procurement lead who compares your case to two others on their desk
These readers do not know your product. They do not trust your company. They do not care about your narrative.
They care about one question: is this investment defensible?
Step 2: What has to be on the first page?
Three things, in this order:
The number. Total economic value, annualized. Not buried on page four.
The payback period. How long until the customer recovers the investment.
The single sentence that says what changes. "Reduces manual invoice processing time by 40%" or "Eliminates three legacy systems." One outcome, stated plainly.
Everything else is supporting evidence.
The reader who gets what they need on page one might read page two. The reader who has to hunt for the number stops reading.
Step 3: Which assumptions do you expose, and which do you bury?
Expose all of them.
A buried assumption reads as a hidden one. The finance stakeholder who finds an assumption on page seven that should have been disclosed on page one does not give you credit for including it. They lose trust.
Show:
Attribution. If you are claiming $500K in cost savings but only 60% of that value is directly attributable to your product, show the 60% figure and explain what drives it.
Execution risk. If the customer has to implement new processes to realize the value, discount the projected value by the likelihood those processes actually get adopted. A 20% execution-risk adjustment signals you are being realistic, not optimistic.
Benchmarks and sources. "Industry average manual processing cost per invoice: $15 (Source: APQC 2025 Benchmarking Report)." Cite the source. Show the year.
The places you discounted your own number are the places you earn belief.
Step 4: What makes a champion refuse to forward it?
Anything that makes them look credulous.
Your champion is staking their credibility on this document. If it reads like vendor marketing, they will not send it. If the CFO challenges one claim and it falls apart, your champion takes the reputational hit.
Red flags that stop forwards:
Aggressive ROI claims with no cited sources. "500% ROI in six months" with no explanation of how that number was calculated.
Round numbers. $1,000,000 in savings reads as invented. $947,200 reads as calculated.
No visible risk adjustment. If every assumption is best-case, the reader assumes the worst-case was hidden.
A logo on every page. One logo, top of page one. After that, let the content speak.
Step 5: How do you know it worked?
It comes back with edits.
The champion who sends your business case to finance and gets questions sends those questions back to you. That is a good signal. It means the document survived initial review and is being taken seriously.
The best signal: the document comes back with the buyer's own adjustments. They changed an assumption. They added a value driver you did not include. They ran a sensitivity analysis on payback period.
When a buyer edits your business case, they own it. And a case the buyer owns is a case they will defend.
Business cases that get forwarded vs. those that don't
Attribute | Gets forwarded | Does not get forwarded |
|---|---|---|
First-page content | Number, payback, outcome statement | Background, company history, feature list |
Assumption transparency | All assumptions exposed and cited | Assumptions buried in footnotes or hidden |
Risk acknowledgment | Execution risk and attribution discounts visible | Best-case scenario only, no adjustments |
Tone | Finance-grade, conservative, inspectable | Marketing-grade, aggressive, vendor-voiced |
Edit-ability | Structured for buyer to adjust inputs | Locked PDF or slide deck, no model underneath |
FAQ
How long should a business case be?
Two to four pages. Page one is the summary. Page two is the value driver breakdown. Page three is assumptions and sources. Page four is optional; use it for sensitivity analysis or alternative scenarios if the deal is complex.
Anything longer than four pages will not get read in full. Finance stakeholders skim. Write for skimmers.
Should I include the price?
Yes. Show the price and the value side by side. The value surplus, the gap between what the customer gains and what they pay, is the argument that justifies the investment.
Hiding the price makes the champion explain it without you. Showing the price lets you frame it in terms of value capture.
What if the champion will not share it internally?
Ask why. If they say "it's not ready yet," that is a signal the document does not meet their bar for credibility. If they say "I don't want to loop in finance yet," that is a signal the deal is not as advanced as you thought.
A champion who will not forward a business case is a deal that is not progressing.
Who signs off on a business case internally?
The economic buyer. That is usually a CFO, VP Finance, or department head with budget authority. The champion advocates. The economic buyer approves.
The business case you write is not for the champion. It is for the person the champion has to convince.
Build one on your next late-stage deal and send it before the executive review.
