Cost-Benefit Analysis

Saw a good article on Cost/benefit analysis at Solution matrix. You can even download a free spreadsheet if you subscribe to their news letter.

Here are some highlights from the article.

- The term Cost benefit analysis is used frequently in business planning and decision support. However, the term itself has no precise definition beyond the idea that both positive and negative impacts are going to be summarized and then weighed against each other.

The term covers several varieties of business case analysis, such as:

Return on investment (ROI analysis)
Financial justification
Cost of ownership analysis
All of these approaches to cost benefit analysis attempt to predict the financial impacts and other business consequences of an action. All these approaches have the same structural and procedural requirements for building a strong, successful business case. They differ primarily in terms of: