Business Opportunity Selections
What is business opportunity selection and why is it important?
Budget formulation, at its foundation, is the process of choosing and assessing which discretionary investments will be included in a budget submission. It encompasses all aspects of preparing the submission and its supporting analyses, which justify the request.
The budget formulation process is critical because it secures funding, and because it makes a statement throughout the organization as to its priorities for the upcoming year.
As we say at Definitive, “The business strategy becomes real when the first investment is made,” so we see the formulation of the budget as the step that enables the achievement of business goals and objectives.
How does Definitive help facilitate this process?
Budget formulation is a team sport. As such, facilitating the process requires strong teamwork between customer staff and our team.
Definitive’s role is to facilitate: the establishment and weighting of the selection criteria that will be used by the team; the review and evaluation of potential investments; and the trade-off analyses and decision-making process.
Definitive also assists the customer by managing the business process, developing job aids and reports, and providing and maintaining the support tools, such as Definitive Pro™ and Microsoft SharePoint sites and lists.
Example Decision Model
Collaboration
Definitive Pro™ enables the budget formulation team to collaborate anytime, anywhere, using any device. By making it easier to participate, we are able to bring together business, technology and finance representatives, promote teamwork, and improve cross-functional insight.
Prioritization
Definitive Pro™ uses the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to accurately establish the relative importance of the decision criteria, and efficiently score all discretionary investments. The consistent and transparent scoring process yields greater consensus and buy-in than other approaches.
Optimization
Definitive Pro™ employs the Gurobi optimizer®, a state-of-the-art mathematical programming solver for optimizing the allocation of resources. The Gurobi optimizer determines the set of investments that maximizes strategic benefit, while satisfying all dependencies and constraints.
Faster and better decisions — Justifiable decision rationale — Historical record of decisions
Definitive Pro™ also powers group decision support for:
- Budget Formulation
- Business Partner Selections
- IT Demand Management
- Merger & Acquisition Selections
- Organizational Cost Savings
- Personnel Selections
- Product and Feature Selections
- Requirements Prioritization
- Risk Assessments
- Strategic Investment Selections
- Strategy Development
- Surveys and Audience Response
- Vendor Selections