The Case Never Arrived

A project came in from the top this year. Three executives agreed, the word came down, and the directive was roughly: we think this will work, do it.

No data came with it. No business case, no ROI, no owner for either. Just authority and a deadline of as soon as possible.

So we put it through due diligence like anything else. Intake form. Budget forecast. Discovery across the ordering platform, product data, and pricing.

Then we got into the weeds. Pricing for this product line worked nothing like pricing for the rest of the catalog, and the system behind it was a project on its own. Three technical teams would have to build and maintain it. All three were already committed to replatforming the system that handles the company’s digital orders.

Once the case was on paper the gap was obvious. The product line was a small share of what those teams already supported, and the business case never arrived.

The VP of Digital and I shelved it together.