Programme overview
Technical depth: Conceptual · Practical mode: Case study
Introduction
Boards approve growing digital budgets on business cases that promise savings, revenue and better service, yet few organisations can later show what those investments actually returned. Baselines are missing, benefits are claimed by several initiatives at once and nobody is accountable for realising them. This Core Concept course equips executives to define, challenge and govern the value of digital transformation, from the investment decision to post-implementation review. Participants judge real-world case material from several sectors and leave with a Digital Value Realisation Framework for their own portfolio.
Course Objectives
- Define the financial, operational, customer and strategic value a digital initiative must deliver, against a defensible baseline
- Map benefits to enabling changes and accountable owners using a benefits dependency network and KPI tree
- Challenge business-case figures including NPV, IRR, payback and total cost of ownership before approval
- Detect optimism bias, double counting and attribution errors in value claims
- Set governance for tracking, reviewing and acting on realised benefits across the digital portfolio
- Produce a Digital Value Realisation Framework ready for investment committee adoption
Target Audience
- Executives accountable for approving and funding digital transformation portfolios
- Chief financial officers and finance directors assessing technology investment returns
- Chief digital, information and transformation officers answerable for value delivered
- Strategy and performance directors responsible for enterprise KPIs
- Board and investment committee members overseeing major technology spend
Course Outline
Day 1: Why Digital Value Is Hard to Prove
- Digital Value Leakage and Common Measurement Failures
- Financial, Operational, Customer and Strategic Value Categories
- ISO/IEC 38500 Accountability for Value from IT Investment
- Baseline Setting and Counterfactual Comparison Methods
- Current-State Review of Digital Portfolio Value Reporting
Day 2: Value and Benefits Frameworks
- Cranfield Benefits Dependency Network
- Managing Benefits Lifecycle: Identify, Plan, Realise and Review
- COBIT 2019 Value Delivery Objectives and Portfolio Governance
- Balanced Scorecard and KPI Trees for Digital Outcomes
- Technology Business Management Taxonomy for Cost Transparency
Day 3: Building and Judging the Numbers
- NPV, IRR and Payback Analysis for Digital Business Cases
- Total Cost of Ownership Across Licence, Cloud Consumption and Run Costs
- Forrester Total Economic Impact Method for Quantifying Benefits
- Benefit Attribution Across Concurrent Initiatives
- Leading and Lagging Indicator Design for Digital Programmes
Day 4: Bias, Risk and Edge Cases in Value Measurement
- Optimism Bias and Reference Class Forecasting in Business Cases
- Intangible Benefit Valuation and IAS 38 Treatment of Software Costs
- Real Options Thinking for Staged Digital Investment
- Benefit Double Counting and Dis-Benefit Identification
- Post-Implementation Review and Stop-or-Continue Decision Criteria
Day 5: Case Work and the Value Realisation Framework
- Cloud Migration Case Study: Challenging Claimed Savings
- Customer Platform Case Study: Linking Adoption Data to Revenue Impact
- Benefits Dependency Network Build for an Own Initiative
- Digital Value Realisation Framework Drafting
- Investment Committee Panel and Framework Defence
Skills You Will Gain
- Digital Value Governance
- Business Case Appraisal
- Benefits Mapping
- Technology Cost Transparency
- Performance Indicator Design
- Investment Decision-Making
- Portfolio Value Review
Why Attend This Course
- Return with a Digital Value Realisation Framework that links investment, KPIs and accountable owners
- Question transformation business cases with the same rigour applied to any other capital investment
- Decide with evidence whether to scale, pivot or stop a digital initiative after launch
- Compare value measurement practice with executives from other sectors and countries
Conclusion
Digital transformation earns continued funding only when its value can be shown in terms a board accepts. This course moves from the reasons digital value is hard to prove, through benefits and value frameworks and the appraisal of business-case numbers, to the bias, attribution and valuation problems that distort reported returns. The final day turns that material into a Digital Value Realisation Framework that participants take back to their investment committee, giving them a consistent basis for approving, reviewing and stopping digital investments.