If you are planning on launching a customer advisory board, one of the first critical steps is to gather all the information that goes into creating a business case for the board.
Perhaps your management team has asked you to create a business case to justify the budget and resources for the advisory board program—and come up with a plan to launch the program.
Or perhaps you are faced with securing ongoing support for an existing advisory board. Maybe the executive sponsor for the advisory board left the company or moved into a new role. And you must convince your new CAB executive sponsor (a.k.a. your new boss) why to keep the advisory board in place. The same principles for justifying a new board can be used and applied to keep your existing board going, from a budget perspective.
Why do you need a business case for your customer advisory board?
The business case, or justification, for your customer advisory board program will enable you to gain internal alignment and buy-in from key internal stakeholders to allocate funds and drive the CAB program forward.
The client advisory board business case will answer why you want to create a CAB, what the program is, how the board benefits the company (…and the CAB members which are your customers), and which internal resources and budget are needed.
What should you include in the CAB business case?
Make sure to include various key elements, such as:
- What is a customer advisory board?
- The overall mission and objectives of the CAB
- The benefits to your company and to the CAB members (your customers)
- Who will participate from your company?
- Who will be the target CAB members from your customer base?
- What type of CAB will you create? Strategic or product?
- The key themes and topics the board will discuss and explore
- The board engagement plan and timeline
- Budget estimates
We’ve got a business case template ready for you, download our advisory board business case template today. The template is a Google Drive file, so you’ll need to make a copy of the file to your Google Drive to edit it. If you have any questions about the template, let us know.
Join us for a webinar all about how to build a business case for advisory boards.
Our guest speaker Rachel Kozun, VP of Global Customer Success at Quali will share how she gained internal alignment to launch their advisory board in 2021. Bring all your questions to our live webinar on March 4th and Rachel will provide her insights and feedback.
Ignite’s Rob Jensen, Senior Consultant & Facilitator will go into more details on what to include in a CAB business case. He’ll also cover the top 10 key question to consider and explore when creating your CAB business case, starting with how do you currently engage customers?
Don’t miss the webinar on March 4, 2021 at 3:00 PM ET (2 PM CT, 12 PM PT). If you can’t make it, sign up anyways and we’ll send you the webinar recording.
Ignite Advisory Group is the leading global authority on Customer Advisory Boards and Customer-Led Boards. Ignite’s proven methodology for managing and evolving Customer Advisory Boards includes a 4-stage process, encompassing 48 deliverables and measured by 20 metrics to deliver a clear ROI. To learn more about Ignite, visit our website, read our blogs, and follow us on LinkedIn. To find out how your company can benefit from Ignite’s CAB methodology and process, contact us today.