Open Business Cases and create a case. Link it to a capability, a strategic initiative or a solution, then choose "Pull financials from links". Entelim fills the blank cost fields from the budget, cost allocation or solution cost already held against those records. You still write the problem, the options and the recommendation, and you check every figure before it goes to the CIO.
Build the business case for the CIO from the model's own cost and impact figures
For enterprise architecture teams putting a transformation case in front of the CIO.
The question
A CIO does not want an opinion. They want capex, running cost, three-year total cost and return, backed by numbers that survive questioning. Most business cases stall because the figures are copied from three spreadsheets, nobody can say where they came from, and each initiative has to be assembled again from scratch.
What Entelim answers
The Business Cases page lists every case with Title, Status, 3yr TCO, ROI and last updated, and shows a dash where a figure is not recorded. New Business Case takes a title and a short description.
A case opens as a structured document. Each section saves as you leave the field:
- Executive summary, Reasons (strategic context), Business options, Recommendation, Expected benefits, Expected dis-benefits, Timescale, Costs and Major risks
- Status: Draft, Submitted, Approved or Rejected
- three link menus: Linked Capability, Linked Strategic Initiative and Linked Solution, each defaulting to "Not linked"
The Costs, Benefits & ROI panel holds Capex, Opex (annual), 3yr TCO, Annual Financial Benefit, ROI % and Payback (months), and a read-only NPV labelled "3yr, 10% discount". NPV is worked out from capex, annual opex and annual benefit. It shows a dash until at least capex or the benefit is entered. Payback is a number you enter.
Pull financials from links reads the records you linked:
- the initiative's allocated budget becomes a capex suggestion
- the solution's actual cost, or its estimated cost when there is no actual, becomes a capex suggestion
- the capability's latest cost allocation and annual cost become opex suggestions, and its business value generated becomes the annual benefit
- ROI comes from the allocation, the capability and the solution, averaged where more than one exists
- 3yr TCO is capex plus three years of opex
Only blank fields are filled. A figure you have already typed is left alone. A message lists the fields that were filled, or says no new figures were found on the linked records.
The case can be exported as an image. The Mermaid, Lucidchart and Archi downloads are diagram files: they carry the saved diagram and the reasons for each box, not the text and financial figures you typed in, so use the image or the printed page for the completed document.
For the portfolio view, the Investment Prioritization Matrix (Investment Analysis in the module list) shows each capability's strategic, coverage and risk scores, total score, priority, an investment figure and a recommendation. An investment marked "Live" comes from a linked initiative. One marked "Est." is a scoring-based estimate with no linked initiative.
Who asks it
An enterprise or business architect who has to put a funding request in front of the CIO, and the programme sponsor who has to defend it to finance.
How to get your answer
- Open Business Cases and choose New Business Case.
- In the case, set the Linked Capability, Linked Strategic Initiative and Linked Solution that the funding relates to.
- Choose Pull financials from links and read which fields were filled.
- Type the figures the links could not supply, such as annual benefit and payback.
- Write the problem, options and recommendation, and set Status to Submitted.
- Open the Investment Prioritization Matrix to see where the capability ranks against the others.
Doing this without Entelim
You build the case in a slide deck with cost figures pasted from a finance spreadsheet. A year later nobody can say which version of the numbers the case used, or whether the model and the case agreed.
Limits
- The pull is something you start. Nothing is filled until you choose the button.
- It only draws on the budget, cost allocation and solution cost fields of the linked records. Impact analysis results are not fed into the case.
- If no linked record carries a cost, nothing is filled and the fields stay blank.
- Payback, and any benefit not recorded against the capability, you enter yourself.
- The matrix needs capabilities mapped to applications first. Without them it shows a setup page.
- Creating and editing cases is open to administrators, architects and business architects.
Frequently asked questions
Does Entelim invent a number to fill a gap?
No. A figure with no source stays blank, and NPV stays a dash until capex or benefit exists.
Will pulling figures overwrite what I typed?
No. Only blank fields are filled.
Can I use it without linking anything?
Yes. Enter the figures by hand. The pull only helps when a linked record carries a cost.
How is this different from a spreadsheet?
The figures are read from the records the rest of your model already holds, and the case sits against the capability, initiative or solution it funds.
Related questions and modules
- Business Case Write an IT business case with capex, annual opex, three-year TCO, ROI, payback and NPV, linked to the capability or initiative it funds. Try it free.
- Investment Analysis A ranked view of where to invest across your business capabilities — scored on strategic importance, coverage, maturity gap and risk, with real initiative…
- Which value streams are at risk because the capabilities under them are immature? For enterprise architecture teams and the CIO they report to.
- Is the programme on time and on budget, and what does each project touch? For programme managers and the enterprise architecture teams supporting them.
Import your model and get a free, cited answer to what breaks if a system fails, in minutes.