Information and Knowledge Management using ArcGIS ModelBuilder

Bart-Jan van Putten, Franziska Brecht, and Oliver Günther
Peter decides to start by analyzing the old BC. It consists of a market potential estimation and a cost
model in a spreadsheet. There is also a document which explains several intangible benefits (i.e.,
benefits that could not be quantified) and that points to the spreadsheet for the tangible benefit:
expected revenue for the new product, based on a market potential estimation.
The spreadsheet appears to contain an interesting structure to distinguish between cross-selling and
up-selling opportunities. Unfortunately, Peter can not completely understand the reasoning behind the
calculation methods. Therefore he asks Marta for the name of the author of the BC, but learns that
‘Tim’ is no longer with the company. Thus, Peter designs a new spreadsheet with an adapted
calculation method that is workable for him.
After that, Peter calls David, a software developer. With David he estimates the required development
effort required to turn Marta’s idea into a full-fledged product. He also learns that the company
currently has about 300 existing customers that would potentially be interested in the new product. As
the company does not exactly know how many customers are really using the existing product, this
number is an estimate that is based on the number of error messages that the company receives.
Peter then calls Eva, a sales colleague. Eva says that there are about 700 existing customers, of
whom 80% would probably be interested in the new product, as long as the product is interoperable
with legacy systems.
After that, Peter builds a first draft of the market potential estimation spreadsheet. As Eva has a closer
relationship with the company's customers than David, Peter decides to use the numbers that Eva
suggested. To calculate the revenue potential, Peter multiplies the expected number of customers
with his estimation for the number of required licenses per customer and the price per license.
Actually, Peter is applying a license-based pricing model, but he is not aware of that.
A few days later, Peter calls Stephan, from the pricing strategy team. Peter explains to Stephan that
he now has some understanding of the market for the new product. However, to calculate the
potential revenue for the company, he roughly needs to know the price that can be charged for it.
Stephan explains that pricing is a complicated process and that it is more likely that a usage-based
pricing model will be applied. Stephan also provides Peter with some prices of similar products that
are already on the market. Finally, Peter changes the pricing model, finishes the market potential
estimation and presents it to Marta.
(End of BCD story)
When analysing the story, one sees that Peter, the BC developer, would like to reuse the market
potential estimation template from the earlier BC. Unfortunately he can not understand the reasoning
behind it, nor get in contact with the earlier developer. Therefore he needs to change the calculation
method. As a consequence, he may be using a less reliable quantification method and it will be
harder to compare the new BC with the earlier one.
Peter receives inconsistent information from David and Eva regarding the number of customers. He
decides to replace David's input with Eva's information, but thereby looses the perspective of David,
which may be appreciated by BC evaluators later on. Another issue is that the number of customers is
bound to change. In order to keep the BC accurate, Peter needs to update it continuously, based on
the information that he receives.
Peter needs to apply a pricing model. At first he applies a license-based pricing model, but later on it
appears that he should be using a usage-based pricing model. Such a switch is not uncommon in the
iterative BCD process. However, Peter needs to develop and change the calculation methods himself.
This is less efficient than if pre-defined pricing models could be applied and switched on the fly.
Moreover, the ‘home grown’ method may be less reliable and will make the BC less comparable with
other BCs.
5. Solution areas
Reuse: The content of earlier BCs can be valuable. For example, when estimating the payback period
for an investment, it is possible to take an average of the payback periods of several earlier BCs. This
way, data from earlier BCs could be used to evaluate the probability that a newer BCs is reliable. The
reuse of BC content is about reusing benefit, cost and risk factors and their values. The reuse of BC
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