Business case
Pricing the status quo: the number that unlocks the budget
Finance rarely rejects a compliance investment because the solution is wrong. They reject it because the alternative — carrying on — appears to be free. It is not, and quantifying it is usually easier than modelling the benefit.
6 min read
Four cost categories that are almost always present
- Labour: hours per cycle spent on rework, reconciliation, manual filing and error chasing, priced at loaded cost and multiplied by cycles per year.
- Penalty and interest exposure: actual assessments over the last three years, plus the expected value of known open positions.
- Blocked revenue: markets not entered, contracts delayed, or customers unserved because compliance could not be evidenced.
- Key-person risk: work that only one person can perform, priced as the cost of the disruption if they are unavailable for a quarter.
Use ranges and name the assumptions
A single precise figure invites an argument about precision. A range with the assumptions listed underneath invites an argument about the assumptions — which is the conversation you want, because it is where finance becomes a co-author rather than a reviewer.
Show the trajectory, not just the level
Status-quo costs almost never stay flat. Transaction volumes grow, mandates add jurisdictions, and manual controls degrade under load. A three-year trajectory showing the cost curve rising is far more persuasive than a single-year snapshot, and it is usually the honest picture.
Let the comparison do the arguing
Put the status-quo trajectory next to the investment on the same chart, with the crossover point marked. At that stage the recommendation is arithmetic, and the conversation moves from whether to when — which is the only movement that matters.
Where this comes from
This note condenses Price the status quo.
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