CoI Cost of Inaction Business Case Angle

We all know RoI. Now welcome CoI.

Moving from a projection of gain, to an audit of ongoing loss. In contemporary labelling.

As cubrep, I sold what today'd be termed Enterprise systems. Amazing machinery that recorded ledgers and produced accounts at the press of a button. Spreading through order processing, invoicing, picking, delivery and a whole raft of hitherto opaque management reporting.

Just three decades ago a significant rump of deals saw us replace pen and paper. Bosses alert to the impending, essential change-up required.

Others sought to move on either from expensive and often overkill mainframes, or at the smaller outfit end, progress from what was basically the spreadsheeting of entry-level.

In both cases, there were always those who did not want to do anything different.

As is the way more often than not on any solution sell.

And they can really dig their heels in.

We'd construct the Business Case. Centrepiece of our Prop. Look! NUMBERS! Indisputable, surely..?

Thankfully, I was taught to go deep on the pain points. There's always someone somewhere tearing their hair out. Desperate for rescue. Find them.

It could show the bottleneck ensnaring any hope of progress. A crazy amount of wasted resource distracted from where the business really needs it. Workarounds that leave them hemorrhaging cash.

The thing with typical ROI work, is that its presentation is ultimately positive.

Here's the sunlit uplands. A mere signature away, thank you.

Yet as with many an emotional decision - which is every business one - fear can be greater driver than hope.

What if they simply carried on?

Unchanged, where might they end up?

In those heady Nineties, we came up with a figure. Then gleefully multiplied by how ever many days, weeks, months until they could see exactly what was due to detonate.

Today, there's a useful flip chart page you can write up on this.

Back in the day, I evoked their predicament from the concept of 'status quo'.

We all know what this means. Where we at right now.

Often used in the context of wishing to either preserve or alter it.

Can you go back to a place in time before?

The ante status quo.

With all that might entail, if ever possible.

But to open minds of those mistakenly wishing to stick rather than twist, how about the 'status quo semper'?

Semper meaning always. Translatable for us as, 'forever', continued' and most apt, 'unchanged'.

If they carry on doing what they do today, where will it lead?

Well, usually to disaster. Compounded. And at some stage soon, irreversible.

Who wants that?

And constructing our COI around this will set us further apart.

You needn't necessarily go for the full blown treatment to start with.

Just a simple amount. Writ large. That's what's at stake for them.

Making doing nothing no option at all.