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134 Managing Customers Through Economic Cycles

by machine A per month if they use this manufacturer’s
cutting tools. If the economy has contracted, there are spe-
cific elements that are more focused on reduction of pro-
duction costs and efficiency of tool use, e.g. tool changeover,
extra measurements, deburring (secondary “cost of quality”
operational costs to manufacturing). Most of his businesses
start to think about purchasing their tools in terms of out-
of-pocket and indirect costs. With their spreadsheet, the
client can plug in the margin of their manufactured product
using their tools which produces a “what if” scenario, e.g.
if you can produce X more additional units per month on
machine Y, then your company will generate an additional
Z margin using our tools on that particular machine.

Human aspects of the business case

Let’s begin by understanding the fundamentals of the busi-
ness case. The common fallacy is that business cases are
about rational and rigorous numbers. Not true. The core of
a business case is how key influencers and decision-makers
“feel” about the numbers, i.e. do they believe them/view.
A common mistake is for people to build spreadsheets in
their office and then populate them with numbers independ-
ent of any process or buy-in from the prospective client.

The best business cases are not pre-manufactured in a
cubicle and then “thrown over the wall”. Each one must be
customized to the business. Not only customized to the busi-
ness, but the numbers contained in the business case must
be emotionally tied to someone important who not only
believes them but has the power to act on them. The perfect
business case is one which, when finally presented to the
decision-makers, the “numbers” have already been emotion-
ally “bought into”.

The most effective business cases are those that are built
with people who are perceived as the nonbiased experts
within the business. The process of actually creating the
“numbers” that will populate the business case should