The business case that got more useful when the number got smaller.
Meridian is a fictional teaching case. The people, company, dialogue and amounts below are invented for practice—not customer results.
Start with what the buyer actually said.
“Eight CSMs spend about five hours a week rebuilding account reports. When the reports run late, they pull an outside operations team in to help.”
A weak draft adds up the CSM time and calls it savings. At $60 per hour across 46 working weeks, that is $110,400.
But no salaries have disappeared. The time might become useful capacity. It is not automatically cash the business can avoid spending.
Make the connection testable.
“You said the outside team gets pulled in when reports run late. Which part of that spend could actually change if the reporting work improved?”
In the teaching case, Finance identifies $120,000 of existing contractor spend. A possible 50% reduction is a proposal to test. At 80% realization and a two-month delay, first-year cash benefit is $40,000.
The license costs $24,000, implementation $6,000 and internal running cost $3,600. Net first-year cash is $6,400. Cash payback occurs in month 11 in this model.
At 50% realization, the same model produces negative $8,600. Keep that case visible. The next decision is whether to test two tasks with Finance, not whether to approve the entire purchase.
Use this on your next opportunity.
- Identify the statement the buyer actually made.
- Separate capacity, avoidable cash and uncertain risk.
- Ask what would need to be true for the business effect to exist.
- Choose the smallest next decision supported by the evidence.
The full Meridian case, calculator, workbook, Buyer Case Portfolio and workflows are included in Starter. Complete adds the consensus and no-fit cases, deeper discovery, a twelve-station practice lab and deal routines.
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