Business Cases are becoming more complex and important to decision makers and they often now incorporate intangible values, and these values are not readily observable in markets.

Through our experience with business cases, we have recognised the need to partner with specialist economists, such as Jim Binney from Natural Capital Economics, to assist us with the assessment of intangibles such as:

• Environmental values.
• Distributional consequences.
• Different investment needs.
• A more complex set of information requirements.

With business cases now having a broader scope than they did historically, what’s the solution?

• Professional coordination and project management is a must to ensure inputs from all aspects are properly incorporated and integrated;
• Economic and financial analysis needs to be more nimble and draw on a broader suite of techniques and data sources. Along with this, we find that sensitivity analysis is even more important to inform decision makers;
• Analysis of the distribution of benefits allows us to identify potential co-investors; and
• The consideration and inclusion of environmental values broadens the appeal of projects to institutional investors that are seeking a commercial return and better social outcomes.

Business Cases are becoming more complex with a broader scope and undertaking them requires joined-up and coordinated thinking, analysis and teams.

If you need to bolster your current business case, or need to challenge your business case inputs, contact Jim Binney from Natural Capital Economics or the team at Core Project Advisory, to discuss how we can assist you.