Why are we writing a business case?

• Why is digital preservation important to you organization, department, and collection?
• Why should I make digital preservation a priority?
• What is the importance of the assets to the institution?

NB you need to tailor the answers according to the audience (Know your audience) ......

When writing the business case consider the audience and appropriate tone and level while writing, you may need to write two versions (high-level and an implementer case in order to sell the activities)

• What are the benefits in relation to:
  • Collections? (secure and accessible)
  • Department? (fulfilling strategic objectives)
  • Organisation? (ability to fulfil organisational mission, effective exploitation of assets - maximising their use)
  • Users? (access to collections)
  • Depositors? (trust in repository)

• What are the risks in relation to:
  • Collections? (information loss)
  • Department? (inability to fulfil strategic objectives)
  • Organisation? (reputational damage, loss of income generating capacity with lack of access to assets)
  • Users? (loss of access to collections)
  • Depositors? (lack of confidence in repository)

• Why should I worry about data loss?
• Why should I worry about access?
• Why can't I leave it to our IT people?

• What are your organisation's business objectives?
• How mature (in DP terms) is organisation?
• What scale is the organisation aspiring to?

Further information:

• Strategy documents (collections development policies, organisational/departmental strategies, mission statements)
• Risk assessment methodologies
• Sample business cases
• Preservation case studies - horror stories and success stories