PM ADVISORY:

Strengthen the Case for Your Web Initiative

A CFO’s perspective on “how to” get your project approved

By Jim Wright, VP Finance
OmniTI Computer Consulting

USA

The Challenge

Let’s face it.  The toughest challenge encountered by many web initiatives is getting the approval to launch the effort in the first place. Having an innovative and elegant technical solution to address a company need is a great starting point, but to get your web initiative implemented, you need funding, resources and management support. Winning this support isn’t always easy. Even in the best of times, companies have many more potential initiatives than they can fund and support. Like it or not, your proposed project will compete against other possible initiatives from within IT and from other business areas. In tight economic times, the competition for selection is even tougher: resources are more limited and proposals receive greater scrutiny.

To evaluate the disparate project opportunities before them, companies typically rely on an approval process that reviews project business cases to identify the most promising use of resources. Business cases help evaluators assess an initiative’s fit within corporate objectives, measure its projected benefits against investment requirements, uncover potential risks, and identify alternatives. By focusing on business rather than technology outcomes, this approach allows evaluators to compare very different types of projects, enabling them to select the initiatives that offer the company the greatest value for their investment. In this approval process, the project that makes the best and most credible case wins.

Few situations are more frustrating than seeing a lessor project win approval as a result of evaluators not fully appreciating the merits of your initiative. Typical shortcomings that hurt web initiative proposals include: relying too heavily on technology benefits to sell the project, not tying technology advantages to specific business outcomes and providing vague or overly subjective answers to business case justification questions. Facts and quantitative support are essential for credibility when estimating investment needs and anticipated project benefits. Failing to make the best possible business case can put an otherwise worthy web initiative on the sidelines.

The goal of this paper is to help you make stronger, more business-oriented cases to justify and win approval for your web projects. To support this objective, the paper examines the key questions that Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) use to evaluate projects and provides a CFO’s perspective on how to answer those questions to your best advantage. It illustrates its points with real life examples that share OmniTI’s experience in delivering successful web initiatives for our clients.

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To read entire paper (click here)

About the Author Jim Wright Author Jim Wright is Vice President, Finance for the OmniTI Computer Consulting Group, where he spends much of his time working with clients and internal staff in developing business objectives and metrics for various Internet projects. Jim has helped the firm launch several Internet services: Circonus, the SAAS solution that enables real-time monitoring of key technical and business metrics, Fontdeck (a joint venture with Clearleft, a well-known UK internet design firm), that provides standards compliant, real fonts for web sites and PayPI a PCI compliance interface. Jim's expertise in establishing and monitoring key business objectives and metrics has been key to improving or maximizing the investment and performance of client  projects.  Prior to joining OmniTI, Jim spent more than 15 Years as a Senior Executive responsible for Finance, Strategic Planning, Operations and IT for Fortune 500 Companies in the biotech and fashion industries. In  these roles he worked with major venture funds to turn around underperforming companies. His responsibilities included identifying, executing and monitoring key initiatives that resulted in bottom line improvements approaching $100mm. These initiatives included marketing and sales initiatives, IT implementations, and plant and vendor rationalizations.  Jim's business acumen worked also for such clients as Estee Lauder, Yves Saint Laurent, Liz Claiborne, Ogilvy and Mather, Texaco, Equitable Life Insurance, JP Morgan Chase and Campbell Soup during his 15 years in Big Four Management Consulting.  To contact Mr. Wright, send email to jim@omniti.com.  Founded in 1997, OmniTI designs, builds and operates web infrastructures and applications for companies that require scalable, high performance, mission critical solutions. Targeted to B2C organizations, the company’s expert engineers specialize in providing complex, high-transaction and large-volume data applications. Unlike competitors that offer limited web design, development or database services, OmniTI offers end-to-end, purpose built technology solutions that include strategic consulting, web design and development, database services, Internet architecture support and managed services. OmniTI is committed to continuous innovation that enables businesses on the web to move at customer speed.   For more, visit www.omniti.com