---
name: create-a-business-case
description: >-
  A business case your CFO can check: it starts from one strategic metric, finds the operating constraint, tests AI fit and readiness, and measures return against the original result.
  Task type: Create. Built for Sales, All Revenue Teams.
  Use when the request sounds like "Create an Outcomes-First Business Case".
  Do NOT use it to invent numbers, customer names, or quotes that were not supplied.
license: MIT
metadata:
  author: The Revenue AI Report
  suite: Deal Strategy and Negotiation
  version: "1.0"
  source: https://www.therevenueaireport.com/prompts/create-a-business-case
---

# Create an Outcomes-First Business Case

A business case your CFO can check: it starts from one strategic metric, finds the operating constraint, tests AI fit and readiness, and measures return against the original result.

One job only: a business case your CFO can check: it starts from one strategic metric, finds the operating constraint, tests AI fit and readiness, and measures return against the original result. Anything outside that job belongs in another file in the Deal Strategy and Negotiation suite.

## When to use this skill

- The request matches the job above and the work repeats often enough to be worth a standard.
- You have, or can ask for, the inputs listed below.
- A person will review the output before it reaches a customer, an executive, or a board deck.

## When not to use it

- The answer needs a number, a benchmark, or a quote nobody supplied. Ask for it instead of producing one.
- The task is a different job in the same suite. Open that file rather than stretching this one.
- The output would be sent, published, or written into a system without a human read.

## Inputs to collect first

- customer information
- product details
- business case

Ask for anything missing before running. Do not fill a gap with a plausible guess.

## Process

1. Confirm the job, the audience, and the decision the output feeds.
2. Collect the inputs above. Name anything still missing out loud.
3. Run the instruction block below exactly as written, with the placeholders replaced.
4. Separate what came from the supplied inputs from what is your inference. Label the inference.
5. Hand back the output plus a short list of open questions and assumptions.

## Instruction block

Run this text with the placeholders filled in.

```text
Build an outcomes-first business case. Do not begin with the product or a generic benefits list.

Inputs:
<customer_information>
{$CUSTOMER_INFORMATION}
</customer_information>

<product_details>
{$PRODUCT_DETAILS}
</product_details>

Follow this sequence:

1. Name one strategic outcome, its owner, decision period, current metric, and pre-AI baseline. If any are missing, ask for them.
2. Decompose that metric into measurable drivers. For sales velocity use: opportunity count x average deal size x win rate / sales-cycle length. Select one driver using the customer's evidence.
3. Diagnose the tasks, processes, workflows, data, integrations, people, skills, ownership, incentives, and controls beneath that driver. State the operating constraint.
4. Test whether AI is suitable for that constraint. Then test whether the organization is ready to deploy, supervise, and measure it. Keep fit and readiness separate.
5. Choose one OAR level: Optimize improves a task in the current process; Amplify changes workflow, ownership, or decision quality inside the current operating model; Reinvent builds a different operating model from first principles. Explain why the other two do not fit.
6. Build the cost model with licenses, usage, implementation, integration, data preparation, training, governance, supervision, change management, and ongoing operations.
7. Define the comparison method, review date, success threshold, guardrails, expansion rule, and exit rule. Measure the original outcome metric, not activity alone.

Rules:
- Do not invent market benchmarks, customer inputs, adoption rates, conversion lifts, or implementation costs. Mark missing values as unknown.
- Do not turn hours saved into financial return unless a cost actually stops or deliberate redeployment produces a measured result.
- Label vendor case studies directional and carry their sponsor, sample, method, market, and date caveats.
- Show formulas and assumptions so finance can replace them.

Return:
<business_case>
- Strategic outcome, owner, period, metric, and baseline
- Driver tree and selected driver
- Operating diagnosis and constraint
- AI fit and readiness verdicts
- OAR level and rationale
- Full cost model
- Measurement design, attribution caveat, and decision thresholds
- Base, downside, and upside cases using only supplied or sourced inputs
- Missing evidence and next actions
</business_case>
```

## Decision rules

- Supplied evidence beats inference. If the two disagree, say so and keep the evidence.
- Unknown is a valid answer. Write "unknown" rather than estimating.
- Keep one recommendation per output. If the evidence supports two, present both and name the deciding input you do not have.
- Match the reading level of a working operator. Short sentences. Explain any term the reader may not use daily.

## Quality checks

- Every number, name, date, and quote traces to an input the user supplied.
- No vendor claim is repeated as fact without naming the source.
- Assumptions are listed separately from findings.
- The output answers the original request and nothing else.
- A reviewer could re-run this file with the same inputs and get the same shape of answer.

## Guardrails

- Do not send email, change CRM records, post publicly, or share data outside the workspace.
- Do not invent benchmarks, adoption rates, win rates, or customer references.
- Flag anything that needs a human decision instead of deciding it.

## Source

- Prompt page: https://www.therevenueaireport.com/prompts/create-a-business-case
- Suite: https://www.therevenueaireport.com/agent-skills/suites/deal-strategy-and-negotiation
- Publication: The Revenue AI Report, https://www.therevenueaireport.com