Building a business case with stated assumptions
Help a customer decide with numbers they can check: the problem's cost in the customer's own figures, benefits from clearly labelled assumptions, the full cost, return on investment and payback, a sensitivity check, and honest presentation without guarantees or double counting.
- Level
- Intermediate
- Length
- About 55 minutes
- Contents
- 3 lessons · 1 video · final exam
- Status
- Published · updated 1 Oct 2026
Skills you'll practise
- Separate the customer's own data from the seller's assumptions in a business case
- Calculate monthly benefit, annual return on investment and payback from clearly defined inputs
- Run a sensitivity check by changing the weakest assumption
- Spot double counting, guarantees and borrowed benchmarks in a draft case
- Answer a finance challenge to an assumption with evidence and a way to test it
Course outline
- 1.A business case with stated assumptionsVideo · 2 min
- 2.Value in the customer's own numbersLesson · 15 min
- 3.Benefit, return and paybackLesson · 17 min
- 4.Presenting and defending the caseLesson · 14 min
- 5.Building a business case with stated assumptions: knowledge checkKnowledge check · 16 questions
- 6.The CFO questions your ROI slideScenario
- 7.Final exam8 questions · passing it completes the course, so people who already know the material can test out
Sources it draws on
The lessons and questions are written from these references, so learners can go back to the original.
- US FTC: Advertising FAQs: A guide for small business (substantiation)
- General marketing and sales practice (starter content; have a subject expert review it)
See it with your own jobs and topics
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