Certified: The ISACA CGEIT Audio Course

In this episode, we’re going to connect a few dots that often feel far apart for brand-new learners: money spent on I T, the work that money funds, and the real-world outcomes an organization expects in return. A lot of people first hear the phrase business case and assume it is basically a pitch document, like a persuasive essay that tries to win approval. That is part of it, but the more important idea is that a business case is a disciplined way to translate a technology idea into the language of enterprise value, so leaders can make a decision that is fair, repeatable, and accountable. When that translation is missing, I T spend can look like a black box, and even good projects can be treated as optional or suspicious. By the end of this lesson, you should be able to explain what a business case really is, what it must include to be credible, and how to tie spending to outcomes you can actually measure rather than vague promises.

Before we continue, a quick note: this audio course is a companion to our course companion books. The first book is about the exam and provides detailed information on how to pass it best. The second book is a Kindle-only eBook that contains 1,000 flashcards that can be used on your mobile device or Kindle. Check them both out at Cyber Author dot me, in the Bare Metal Study Guides Series.

A business case starts with a problem or opportunity, but it does not start with a product, a tool, or a list of features. For beginners, it helps to think of the organization as trying to move a few big needles, like earning more revenue, reducing waste, lowering risk, improving customer trust, or delivering services faster and more reliably. The first job of a business case is to show which needle you are trying to move and why it matters now, not someday. This is where measurable enterprise outcomes show up, because outcomes are not the same as activities, and they are not the same as deliverables. An activity is something people do, like migrating a system or training staff. A deliverable is something produced, like a new platform or a set of policies. An outcome is the change the enterprise experiences, like fewer failed transactions, faster onboarding, or a measurable reduction in time spent handling incidents, and outcomes can be tracked over time.

A common misconception is that measurable outcomes always mean profit and dollars, and while money matters, outcomes can be broader than direct revenue. For example, an organization might want to shorten the time it takes to approve loans, reduce patient wait times, improve supply chain accuracy, or cut the frequency of service outages. These are outcomes because they change what the enterprise can reliably do, and they can be measured with numbers like minutes, error rates, percentages, or counts per month. In governance-focused thinking, a strong business case shows how an I T investment supports enterprise goals without pretending that I T is the goal by itself. That is why a business case should point to an objective that already exists at the enterprise level, such as a strategic plan goal or a key performance objective leaders have already agreed to. If you cannot name the enterprise outcome, you are likely describing a project that makes I T feel better, not a project that makes the enterprise better.

To connect spending to outcomes, you need a simple chain of logic that is easy to follow and hard to misunderstand. One way to imagine this is a ladder: the bottom rung is the enterprise objective, the next rung is the measurable outcome, the next rung is what capabilities must change to produce that outcome, and the next rung is what I T will deliver to enable that capability change. In practice, a business case often fails because it jumps from a shiny solution straight to a budget request without explaining the middle rungs. Leaders then ask reasonable questions like, how does this reduce customer churn, why does this shorten cycle time, and what will change in day-to-day operations. A credible business case answers those questions before they are asked, using plain language and a clear cause-and-effect story. You are not trying to impress anyone with jargon; you are trying to show that the organization will get a real return for the effort and cost.

That cause-and-effect story needs a baseline, because you cannot claim improvement without showing what you are improving from. A baseline is simply the current state measured in a way that can be compared later. If you say an investment will reduce outages, you need to state how many outages occur now, how long they last, and what impact they have. If you say an investment will speed up order fulfillment, you need the current average and maybe the variation, because a process that sometimes takes one day and sometimes takes ten days is not the same as one that always takes three days. Beginners sometimes avoid baselines because they feel complicated, but you can start simple and still be honest. The key is that the measurement method must be stable enough that the before and after numbers mean something. Without a baseline, the business case becomes a collection of hopes, and governance becomes guesswork.

Once you have the baseline, you can set a target outcome, but targets must be realistic and tied to how the change will actually happen. It is tempting to promise big numbers to make the proposal look exciting, but inflated targets create a long-term trust problem. If leaders approve an investment based on a promised outcome and the organization never sees that outcome, future business cases will be treated with skepticism even when they are good. A better approach is to explain the mechanism of improvement and then set targets that match the mechanism. For example, if the improvement depends on reducing manual rework, you should explain where rework happens, why it happens, and how the new capability prevents it, then estimate what portion of rework is realistically eliminated. This also helps you identify assumptions, because every business case rests on assumptions, and governance requires that assumptions be visible rather than hidden.

A complete business case also accounts for costs beyond the first purchase, because enterprise outcomes depend on sustained capability, not just initial delivery. Costs include obvious items like acquisition and implementation, but they also include training, process changes, ongoing support, licensing renewals, vendor management, and the internal time spent by staff who must adopt the new way of working. For brand-new learners, it helps to remember that technology rarely creates value by existing; it creates value when people use it correctly, consistently, and at the right scale. That means a business case should include adoption and change costs, even if they are estimated. It should also acknowledge opportunity cost, which is the value of what the organization could have done with the same money and attention. Even if you cannot measure opportunity cost precisely, recognizing it shows maturity and makes the decision more credible.

Benefits should be described in a way that separates outputs from outcomes and separates leading indicators from lagging indicators. A leading indicator is an early sign that you are on the right path, such as percentage of users trained, percentage of processes migrated, or reduction in time to detect an issue. A lagging indicator is the final enterprise outcome, such as reduction in customer complaints or improved profit margin. A new project may show leading indicators quickly while lagging indicators take longer, and a business case should set expectations about that timing. If a business case claims immediate enterprise outcomes from changes that take months to adopt, it should raise suspicion. Good governance also expects a measurement plan, which is a simple explanation of who will measure what, how often, and using which data source. That plan is part of connecting spend to measurable outcomes, because it turns the business case into a commitment to track reality rather than a one-time approval ritual.

Another crucial piece is risk, but risk should be treated as part of decision-making rather than a scare tactic. In the context of governance, risk includes the risk of doing nothing, the risk of doing something, and the risk that the organization cannot execute the change effectively. The risk of doing nothing might be rising incident rates, increasing maintenance costs, or losing competitiveness. The risk of doing something might be implementation disruption, new dependencies, or temporary productivity loss during transition. Execution risk might include lack of skills, weak sponsorship, or unclear ownership. A strong business case names the key risks, explains how they will be managed, and shows how risk impacts expected outcomes. This matters for measurable outcomes because a risk event can erase benefits, and governance leaders need to know what could prevent the organization from getting what it paid for.

Business cases also live in a world of competing priorities, so comparison is part of credibility. A business case should make it easy to compare one proposal to another by using consistent categories and a consistent style of measurement. Beginners sometimes think each business case is unique and should be written in its own format, but governance works better when business cases share a common language. That common language might include cost ranges, expected outcome metrics, strategic alignment, risk level, and dependency complexity. When the organization can compare proposals fairly, the decision process is less political and more transparent. Even if you are not the person making the final choice, your job in building the business case is to give decision makers what they need to choose well. That is the governance mindset: decisions should be explainable, repeatable, and tied back to enterprise goals.

It also helps to understand that enterprise outcomes are owned by the business, not by I T alone, even when I T is doing most of the work to enable change. This is a subtle but important point for new learners, because it changes how you write the business case. If you claim that I T will deliver improved customer satisfaction, you are actually claiming that the business will change how it serves customers, and that requires business participation and ownership. A better framing is that the investment enables capabilities that allow business teams to achieve the outcome, and that business leaders commit to the process and behavior changes needed. This naturally leads to accountability, because measurable outcomes require someone who cares about the measure and has authority to influence it. Without that ownership, the organization may deliver the technical piece and still fail to realize value, then blame the project rather than the missing operational change.

When you put all of this together, you can imagine a simple example without getting tool-specific. Suppose an organization is losing customers because its online checkout fails too often. The measurable enterprise outcome might be a reduction in checkout failure rate and an increase in completed orders. The baseline could be the current failure percentage, the number of support tickets related to failed orders, and the average revenue lost per month due to abandoned carts. The investment might be improving reliability, monitoring, and recovery capabilities, plus process changes in how updates are tested and released. The business case would connect spend to outcomes by explaining how fewer failures lead to more completed transactions, how that translates into revenue, and how the organization will measure the change monthly. It would also describe risks, such as release disruption during transition, and how those risks are controlled.

A final theme to understand is that a business case is not finished when the investment is approved, because approval is only the start of accountability. In a governance-focused environment, the business case becomes a reference point for performance tracking, benefit realization, and learning. If outcomes are not achieved, the organization should be able to ask why, using the original assumptions, measurement plan, and risk notes to guide the analysis. Sometimes the investment was sound but execution failed, and that means the governance process needs to strengthen adoption, ownership, or resourcing. Sometimes the environment changed, and the outcome is no longer relevant, and that means governance must adjust priorities. Either way, the business case is the bridge between spending and results, and measurable enterprise outcomes are the planks that make the bridge strong instead of imaginary.

As we wrap up, keep the big idea simple: building a business case is not about getting permission to spend money, it is about proving that spending money will change the enterprise in a way leaders can measure and hold accountable. The best business cases start with a clearly stated enterprise objective, translate that into one or more measurable outcomes with baselines and targets, and then show how an I T-enabled change will create those outcomes through real capability and process shifts. They also acknowledge full lifecycle costs, realistic timing, and the risks that could block value, because honesty is what makes governance decisions trustworthy. When you connect these pieces clearly, you make it easier for decision makers to choose wisely and easier for the organization to learn whether it truly received the value it expected. That is the mindset this certification wants you to build: disciplined thinking that ties technology investment to measurable enterprise outcomes and keeps that connection visible long after the initial approval.