The benefits that will be delivered by the work outlined in your Implementation Plan.
The benefits section of your business case should identify and describe the financial and non-financial benefits of your digital preservation proposal that will justify the investment. A benefit is a measurable outcome of an action or decision that contributes towards reaching one or more of your organization’s objectives.
Benefits can be described or categorized by the timescale with which they will be realized.
By researching and understanding your organization’s Strategic Plan, you can make sure the benefits you include align with the organization’s objectives and selling points or with issues that will strike a chord with the reviewers of your case. They could include:
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Accountability and transparency
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Authenticity of records and holdings
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Business continuity/management of operational risk
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Compliance with legal regulations, best practice guidelines and specifications
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Cost efficiencies and/or avoidance of penalties
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Enabling research
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Information security
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Integrity and operation of systems and/or technology
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Managing and maintaining a good reputation
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Increased revenue
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Safeguarding the corporate or cultural memory
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Service improvements
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Reduced carbon footprint
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Meeting funder requirements
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Protection of past investments
The next section of this toolkit, Example benefits and risks for typical digital preservation business cases, provides benefit and risk statements for the following scenarios:
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Developing a digital preservation strategy/roadmap
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Increasing staffing complement
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Repository migration to cloud
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Procuring a new digital preservation system
For further examples of selling points to include in your business case benefits, see:
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The Executive Guide on Digital Preservation with benefit statements which relate to different organization types.
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The Keeping Research Data Safe project, Benefits Framework and Benefits Analysis Toolkit.
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Preservica’s A Guide to Making the Business Case for Digital Preservation.
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Arkivum’s Producing a business case for digital preservation and long-term access.
If you have used a maturity modeling tool like the DPC Rapid Assessment Model (RAM) earlier in your Business Case to demonstrate the need for investment, you can use the stages or steps within this to develop a Benefits Realization Plan which identifies how and when the benefits will begin to be realized.