“We Don’t Do Many Business Cases” And Why That’s Probably Costing You More Than You Think

When people hear the term business case, they usually picture something big.

A million-dollar capital project.
A complex deck.
Weeks of modelling and approvals.

So when you ask a mid-market company how often they write business cases, the answer is often:

“We don’t really do many.”

But that’s usually not true.

What companies really mean is:
“We don’t formally document the reasoning behind most day-to-day decisions.”

And that’s where the problem starts.

What We Actually Mean by “Business Case”

A business case doesn’t need to be a 20-page document.

It can be:

• A short email

• A one-pager

• A few structured paragraphs

What matters isn’t the format, it’s that the reasoning is:

• Clear

• Intentional

• Documented

• Easy to find later

Any time a company spends time or money, there should be a clear rationale behind it.

That includes decisions like:

• Buying software

• Hiring someone

• Using a freelancer

• Purchasing new equipment

• Changing a process

• Trialling a new tool

Individually, many of these decisions feel small.
Collectively, they shape the business.

The Real Question: Could Anyone Explain Why You Did This?

Here’s a useful test:

If someone asked:

“Why did we make this decision?”

Could you:

• Find the reasoning quickly?

• See who approved it?

• Understand what was expected to happen?

In most mid-market companies, the answer is no.

The context lives in:

• Someone’s inbox

• A Teams thread

• A meeting that wasn’t documented

• An ERP entry with no explanation

Over time, this creates a fragmented picture of how and why money was spent.

The Hidden Cost of Small, Undocumented Decisions

A $20k decision doesn’t feel significant.

But how many of those happen each year?

Ten?
Twenty?
Fifty?

If no one can see:

• Why they were made

• What problem they were solving

• Whether they delivered value

Then leadership loses visibility, finance loses context, and the organisation loses learning.

You can’t answer simple questions like:

• Where did we actually spend this year?

• Which decisions delivered value?

• Which ones didn’t?

• What should we stop doing next year?

Because the reasoning was never captured in one place.

This Isn’t About More Process. It’s About One Source of Truth.

Most companies don’t need heavier governance.

They need:

• Light structure

• Consistency

• A single place where decision rationale lives

Imagine if every meaningful spend or initiative had:

• A short, structured justification

• A clear owner

• An approval trail

• A place it was saved automatically

No hunting through emails.
No piecing together context months later.
No relying on memory.

Just a searchable, auditable record of how the business made decisions.

Where This Becomes Easy

The reason most companies don’t do this today isn’t because they don’t see the value.

It’s because documenting decisions feels like extra work.

This is where tools like Riff come in, not as “business case software”, but as a way to:

• Capture reasoning as decisions are being made

• Guide people to think clearly about spend

• Automatically store that context in one place

People don’t need to write better documents (Riff makes that very easy anyway).
They need help thinking clearly and a system that saves that thinking without friction.

Redefining What “Good Decision Making” Looks Like

Good decision-making isn’t about perfect analysis.

It’s about being able to say:

“This is why we did this.”

When that becomes normal:

• Finance gains visibility

• Commercial teams gain control

• Leadership gains confidence

• The business learns faster

And suddenly, “business cases” stop feeling like a big, scary thing and start feeling like common sense.

That’s when organisations move from reactive spending to intentional decision-making, without slowing down.