Build a business case
Who asked: the owners of Sablewood Hotels' 220-room resort.
Why: a contractor quotes $4 million to add a spa. The owners want payback within five years.
The data: occupancy, guests per room, expected uptake and spend, and staff and other costs, given at each step.
Done looks like: a yearly profit, a payback, a downside case at lower uptake, and a recommendation the owners can sign off. Each step shows your answers from the step before. All figures are fictional.
A business case answers one question: is this investment worth it? The structure is a short chain of drivers, each step built on the last:
guests → visits → revenue → profit → payback, then a downside case to see how fragile the answer is.
This project builds that chain one step at a time, the way you'd lay out a model in a spreadsheet, row by row. Your answer from each step appears at the top of the next. The math reuses the case math and business math units: multiplying through, margins, payback and sensitivity.
Guests a year = rooms × occupancy × nights × guests per room
Spa visits = guests × uptake
Profit = visits × spend × margin - staff - other costs
Payback = investment / profit
One driver per step.