#businesscase

Buying new software is an inevitable process in any organization. A good example would be newsrooms. Who would have predicted that newsrooms will need more generative AI software and less human editors? Yet AI is now a part of newsrooms (and is delivering new kinds of goof-ups).  However, the process to buy the said software is a complex process. Writing a business justification is the step that turns "we need new software" into budget approval. A strong justification connects the purchase to measurable business outcomes, anticipates objections, and gives decision-makers confidence that the money will come back as value. Here's how to build one that actually gets signed off.

Why Invest in Software?

Asking why is a good point to start. A Software is needed to solve a particular problem or create an advantage. The strongest justifications ground the investment in at least one of these outcomes:

Revenue growth: New capabilities that let you serve more customers or enter new markets.

Cost reduction: Automating manual work, retiring legacy tools, or eliminating errors that are expensive to fix.

Risk mitigation: Meeting compliance requirements, tightening security, and improving resilience against outages or data loss.

Productivity: Speed up teams’ workflows by removing friction from daily workflows.

Competitive positioning: Matching or beating what rivals already offer customers.

Quantify wherever you can. "Saves the finance team roughly 12 hours a week" is far more persuasive than "improves efficiency."

Apply the 40-20-40 Rule

When forecasting timelines and costs, the document must be realistic about how software gets built. The 40-20-40 rule is a long-standing heuristic in software engineering. It states that roughly 40 percent of effort goes into requirements gathering and design, 20 percent into writing the actual code, and the remaining 40 eprcent effort into testing, debugging, deployment, and post-launch maintenance.

The rule helps during the business justification drafting by stopping you from underselling the project by quoting only the coding effort, which is a common trap that leads to bloated budgets and disappointed sponsors. Second, it signals to reviewers that you understand the full lifecycle, which builds credibility. Budgeting is for the full 100 percent, not just the 20 percent part about coding where lines of code.

The Five Qualities of Good Software

Reviewers want to know you'll get something worth having, not just something that runs. Referencing the five widely accepted qualities helps in describing what "good" looks like for the investment:

Functionality: It should do nothing less than what the business actually needs.

Reliability: It should work consistently under real-world conditions, not just in demos.

Usability: Users should be able to use the software without extensive training.

Efficiency. The software should perform well and uses resources sensibly as demand grows.

Maintainability : The software should be updated, fixed, and extended as requirements evolve.

Map your evaluation criteria to these qualities. If you're buying off-the-shelf software, use them as scoring dimensions. If you're building custom, use them as acceptance criteria.

Putting It Together

A compelling business justification answers three questions: why now, what it costs in full, and how we'll know it worked. Anchor the "why" in concrete business outcomes, size the investment honestly using the 40-20-40 split, and commit to delivering software that meets all five quality dimensions. Do this, and your proposal will stand out from the vague requests decision-makers see every day.

Understanding the project charter vs. business case is essential for effective project planning and execution. While the business case provides the justification for starting a project, the project charter serves as the official authorization document that guides execution.

By using both documents correctly, organizations can improve project success rates, reduce risks, and ensure alignment with business goals.

Vineeta Singh who worked very hard for clearing ITM, At the age of 23 after rejecting a package of 1 Cr, start doing the job for only 10,000Rs. A girl from a small district of Gujarat took so many huge steps which you and I can’t think of. No one had ever thought that a business started on Shopify with only 2 products is beating brands like Maybelline and Lakme and is now a 3000 Crs company. Sugar Cosmetics with its 3000+ stores is creating a splash in Indian Cosmetics Market. A question arises here. How did sugar cosmetics start? How did sugar cosmetics destroy Lakme and other big brands? And what are the business lessons we learn and can apply to our business?

HOW DID SUGAR COSMETICS START?

This story starts in 2012 when an investment banking fund offers a 1 Cr package to IIM- Ahmedabad graduated Vineeta Singh. If you or I were at her place at the age of 23 then we would have happily taken that package. But Vineeta Singh didn’t do it.

Starting a sugar cosmetics brand was never the first preference of Vineeta Singh. Her first preference was to start a lingerie brand. With the motive to start a lingerie brand in India through e-commerce, Vineeta Singh pitches her idea to investors. But sadly, wherever she went she got the same answer -why should we give funding to you, why not to someone experienced? Why will people buy from you? This thing mentally shook Vineeta Singh.

She decided that the startup would be bootstrapped and that she would persevere. Vineeta Singh started a small service company that provided services to other companies to check the background of their employees.

They would check backgrounds and get paid for it. At one point, she was making 1 crore rupees per month, but now she only makes 10,000 rupees. The business was growing but there was one problem. The problem was that it wasn’t scalable. Fewer service businesses can grow to a large scale. And most importantly, Vineeta Singh was working but had no interest in this work. And from here starts Sugar Cosmetics.

HOW DID SUGAR COSMETICS DESTROY LAKME?

When Vineeta Singh was thinking of leaving her service business. At that time she identified a big gap in Indian Cosmetics Market. The gap was missing Mid Range Segment.

In 2015, you could find Maybelline and Lakme products for Rs. 300 or less. For products that cost Rs. 1000 or more, the segment between 300 and 1000 didn’t exist in Indian Cosmetics Market.

No brand thought to launch products in this range. Maybelline, MAC, Lakme, Revlon- all these brands whenever launched products and the products were amazing, But because these brands are international, so their products were launched on Global Skin Standards.

But when Vineeta Singh talked to consumers, she got one insight from many customers. The insight was that these international products didn’t suit their skin.

Because Indian skin type is absolutely different from that of the Western countries and the pollution levels are also higher in India as compared to other Western countries. So, the makeup that girls applied used to get removed in just half a day. Thus, there was no durability and the product also didn’t suit their skin type because all products were made on basis of global skin standards.

In cosmetics, Innovation is limited. And Vineeta Singh also knew this. But today if you will see then Nykaa and Sugar Cosmetics are the only two creative brands in the Indian Cosmetic market.

SUGAR COSMETICS BUSINESS STRATEGY

When someone buys a product, the two most important factors are gender and association. Now, understand this carefully.

For example, if a boy is going out to dinner with his friends, he is more likely to go to a restaurant where the food is less expensive and good. However, if a girl is going out to dinner with her friends, she is more likely to go to a restaurant where the environment is good, irrespective of the taste of the food. The look and feel should be good. They should feel safe there.

Interestingly, no one is wrong. The problem is that our gender greatly influences our purchasing behavior. Not only that but there is one thing that both boys and girls depend on when buying. The thing is self-respect. Everyone wants to feel better. Everyone wants to become socially dominant.

In the case of boys, they feel socially dominant by earning money and having power. In the case of girls, they feel dominant by looking beautiful.

Sugar cosmetics placed their products in the mid-range price product range. But packaged it so beautifully that it looked better than premium products. So when a lady looked at sugar cosmetic products from far also, she used to get attracted to them. And when you get a product with beautiful packaging which is also durable and suit your skin type.

SUGAR COSMETICS MARKETING STRATEGY