Business Value Justification Flashcards
(22 cards)
Positioning our help to present the value
Somewhere down the line, if this evaluatin progresses, somebody is going to have to ask somebody else for money. And they are going to be asked, “How much are you going to pay me back in return?” We’d like to help you prepare for that question.
What type of IT Efficiency will we achieve?
Reduce IT Labor Costs
Reduce IT Expenses
What type of Business Efficiency will we achieve?
Increase Analyst Productivity
Increase Knowledge Worker Efficiency
What type of Business Effectiveness will we achieve?
Increase Revenue
Reduce Costs
Achieve Better Outcomes
IT Efficiency - granular positioning
Benefits realized by removing the report generation burden from IT, and enabling self-reliance in the business. The hard numbers around IT are relatively easy to measure and highly credible. Payback comes from reducing the cost burden on IT, enabling them to redeploy resources and to focus on higher value activities.
Business Efficiency
Benefits achieved from optimizing how the business explores data, and authors reports and dashboards. There are two primary roles and associated activities impacted
1) increasing analysts’ productivity by significantly reducing their time to author reports
2) increasing knowledge workers’ efficiency by eliminating lost time searching for information & improving time to insight. It is common for Tableau to reduce report creation and delivery time by 5-0-75%
Business Effectiveness
Decision-makers operate in the realm of business results. These results come from insights that Tableau helps uncover, and often have the greatest business and financial impact. To be most effective, a Business Case needs to showcase the financial benefit from Tableau, and link to achievement of strategic objectives and resolution of critical business problems.
Be…
Conversational and curious - don’t interrogate!
Here’s a way… (discovery)
“Here’s a way to help you think about where and how this will create value”
As we work together…. (discovery)
“As we work together in the coming weeks, we can help you quantify some of these in hard dollar terms. For now, it will be great just to start thinking about what kind of payback you see from this kind of investment”
I’d like to… (validate)
I’d like to understand the inefficiencies and challenges in your current process”
We’ve focused… (validate)
“We’ve focused on marketing effectiveness, improving conversion rates [substitute applicable use case] how to you measure that? Let’s quantify a 1% improvement in that” (typically 1% in a large org will be multiple X ROI gains - think 1% of $100M - you don’t need to shoot for the moon)
Based on our discussions… (validate)
“Based on our discussions, and our experience as part of the Guided Evaluation, I’ve started to draft a business case. I’d love to work together to ensure its accuracy and fit”
Let’s be certain… (decide)
“Let’s be certain the business benefits are clearly understood by your leadership; we don’t want this to be evaluated only based on coasts”
“You’ve quantified FTE productivity savings,
but we aren’t getting rid of people and still
have to pay them…” (concern)
When you employ people and pay them a salary, you’re inherently placing a
value on the hours they work. Using FTE savings is just one way of quantifying
the value the project will deliver. Though you may not eliminate these positions,
the savings show how Tableau eliminates the need to hire additional resources
and allow your existing resources to be redeployed to more productive uses.
“I’m not sure about those revenue uplifts -
what if a competitor enters our market or the
global economy slows down?”
If the product delivers competitive advantage, then even in a downturn or a
more competitive environment, the improvements will recover some of the
revenue that otherwise might be lost.
“I’m not sure I want to give you those
numbers – you’ll just use them in
negotiations.”
If you’re going to purchase anything, at some point your leadership and finance
team will be asking for a justification. Our goal is for you to understand the
value that can be gained from this initiative. We’re happy to work with you to
provide the framework, and to collaborate with you using very rough numbers,
but in the end you can use the tools to create your own internal justification.
“These numbers seem too large – I’m
not comfortable presenting these to my
management.”
Significant technology improvements often yield outsized benefits - imagine
running your business with no computers? Most of our customers are able
to justify their investment by being conservative, and assuming very small
improvements to their key metrics. This is why I always do this collaboratively
with my customers. I want you comfortable with where the returns come from,
and that you’re confident in achieving them.
“I don’t think this is detailed enough for our
business case process.”
This was focused on identifying some of the key areas where Tableau will
provide tangible business benefits, and putting a framework for quantifying
those benefits. Most of our clients have a specific process they must follow to
get funding approval, and that often involves their finance teams. You should
be able to use this information to have fruitful discussions with your finance
team, and we’re happy to help further if you’d like.
“I don’t need to do a detailed financial
business case.”
We feel there’s a lot to uncover by letting us proceed with the exercise of
attempting to quantify the benefits, even if you don’t ultimately include them in
the business case. If you’re sure you won’t be asked for a financial justification
later, we can still qualitatively identify the areas where you expect to improve
your operations.
“How will I know when we’ve realized these
benefits?”
By documenting your current state, you can have something to compare to and
measure after deploying Tableau. In terms of setting our goals and expectations,
let’s limit ourselves to areas where we’re clear on what benefits we expect, and
when we evaluate down the line we’ll also look for other, unexpected benefits.
“Tableau just formats the numbers. To
realize any value we’ll have to change actual
business practices, contracts, or systems. I’m
not sure Tableau should get all the credit for
those possible changes and I’m not sure my
business will actually make the changes.”
It’s clear that you can’t (or shouldn’t) make changes to your business without
insights into your data that indicates what change needs to take place. Though
additional investments and work may need to be done to affect change, Tableau
can show what improvements are needed. In the interest of committing to a
conservative business case, you may want to only project a subset of the total
potential business benefit to Tableau.
