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Your business case

Building your business case

Every business case for action is unique to each organisation. Every business has different priorities and a different rationale for becoming disability confident.

This website contains a range of information, facts and case studies on the business case for disability confidence.

Each of the ‘building blocks’ sections of the website contains a ‘Your business case’ box with a summary of the issue and 3 key facts. These provide an overview of the potential impact of disability confidence on your business. You can then delve deeper to find the statistics and arguments about each of the six building blocks and your stakeholders which are the most relevant to your sector and business priorities.

This section will help you to use the website to:

  • Get your messages right
  • Use headline statistics to attract attention and provide context
  • Include the relevant mix of business case "carrots" and "sticks"
  • Use the right kind of evidence: quotes/ case studies/ statistics
  • Plan an effective presentation

The business case needs to be closely linked to one company, its purpose, values and culture. What does it stand for? What are leaders in the company trying to do and change? Think about B&Q and disability. They can show that in the stores where they have done the most work to support disabled employees and customers, sales are higher. But that does not mean that if you applied the B&Q 'case for action' to your company you would get the same result, in another company or sector.

Mark Goyder, Director, Tomorrow's Company

An effective business case is key to promoting change in your organisation. For more information on what that change should be and how to achieve it, look at the pages on promoting change and visit EFD's website.

Getting your messages right

The right messages about your organisation's vision for disability will help to ensure that your business case is effective in promoting change.

Some examples:

  • We are committed to becoming disability confident across the business – not only to employing more disabled people
  • We no longer make assumptions about what people can do on the strength of a label
  • We aim to be barrier-free for groups and skilled at making adjustments for individuals
  • We have high expectations of disabled people and of the business

Link your commitment to disability to your business priorities, including your corporate responsibility agenda. Include examples of what your business is already doing on disability.

Headline statistics grab the attention of senior decision makers and give a sense of the scale of the issue.

Some of the headline statistics which disability champions find effective, include:

  • 1 in 3 people are disabled or close to someone who is. They are your customers, employees, stakeholders, partners and competitors [i]
  • Disabled people work for you. 1 in every 8 UK employees has a disability – 3.4 million people [ii]
  • 33% of workers aged 50 – 64 have a disability [iii]
  • HSBC, Europe's biggest bank, estimates that worldwise, people over 55 years of age hold around $63 trillion, or about 70% of the planet's wealth. [iv]
  • The numbers of people with disabilities are increasing as developed populations age: Europe's over 65 population is expected to double by 2050 to almost 30% of the total population [v]
  • 62% of all workers would be more productive with greater use of existing IT accessibility features designed to assist disabled people [vi]
  • Over a third of UK businesses have hard to fill vacancies [vii], yet 3.4 million disabled people are out of work. One million say they actively want to work but can't find a job. 1 in 5 people available for work have a disability. [viii]
  • Almost 28% of disabled people who are economically inactive say they would like to work, compared to 24% of non disabled economically inactive people [ix]
  • In the UK, disabled people, their carers, families and friends have an £80 billion combined spending power. [x] In the US they are the fastest growing minority customer market. 82% of disabled customers in the UK took their business to a more accessible competitor in the last year. [xi]

The statistics which work best for you will depend on your business priorities and those within the business you need to convince.

Using the right kind of evidence

You can find a range of recent statistics, case studies and evidence for action arranged in each of the six building blocks listed below and in the main menu.

The type of evidence which you select will depend in part on the type of benefits which you are describing and the business area which you are focusing on.

The following pages may be particularly helpful:

Statistics and bite sized facts.

Case studies

Selecting relevant business case arguments

The facts and arguments which you select from each of these building blocks will depend on your business priorities and your audience. For some managers the legal benefits of not getting sued will continue to form the core of the case for action! For others, the improvements in relationships with individual employees and customers which result from disability confidence will be an unquestionable strategic imperative.

Do not forget the ethical and societal dimensions!

Robust and compelling commercial arguments are essential. However a business case which only focuses on the short term commercial benefits is likely to be lopsided and through ignoring the ethical rationale for action may even alienate disabled people and enlightened managers alike.

Some of the controversy that has arisen around the business case has come from disabled people asking, ‘Why do you need a business case to give me my rights?' and managers arguing, ‘We don't need a business case - We do this because it is the right thing to do.'

The Forum and its members believe that the ethical arguments for action are an essential part of the business case. All our experience is that there is mutual benefit for business and disabled people working together in this area. Increasing numbers of businesses recognise the benefits of aligning business activities with societal values and most managers want to do the right thing.

Remember, communicating that legal compliance alone is driving you to action actually increases the risk to reputation and makes litigation more likely.

In most circumstances, including a balanced mix of arguments from each of the building blocks will be the most effective.

Planning an effective presentation

Make sure you have the decision makers who matter in the room and that your presentation is tailored to their perspective.

Consider circulating copies of ‘Realising potential' before the presentation.

Your Audience

Disability champions need to equip colleagues with the arguments they need:

  • To persuade the board to invest in change
  • To overcome objections from across the business

Persuading Board and Senior Managers

  • Emphasise the strategic benefits of disability confidence
  • Take advantage of the compelling evidence from other senior business leaders
  • Explain how it is possible to measure and benchmark performance in this area through the use of the Disability Standard

EFD has a number of initiatives to enable senior business leaders to come together to promote change.

Our President, John Varley, Chief Executive of Barclays chairs the largest group of Board and Chief Executive level champions on disability in the world. This group is open to all Gold Card members of EFD.

For more information contact Niccola Swan, Deputy Chief Executive tel: +44 (0)20 7403 3020 or email niccola.swan@employers-forum.co.uk

Translating senior commitment into action

Explaining the benefits to action and overcoming objections from across the business is the essential second step. In large part this means:

  • Explaining the commercial benefits which are most immediately relevant to managers
  • Making it easier to change than not change

Working with business and disabled people, EFD has a range of best practice publications, events and an information help line which can help you to promote change

More information on promoting change

Sources

  1. [i] Office of National Statistics Census 2001
  2. [ii] Labour Force Survey, Spring 2005
  3. [iii] Labour Force Survey, Spring 2005
  4. [iv] HSBC estimation of aging customers combined wealth, The Economist, April 2007
  5. [v] Eurostat, News Release, 48/2005, 8 April 2005
  6. [vi] Microsoft/ Forrester Research, 2003
  7. [vii] Investors in People, September 2005
  8. [viii] Labour Force Survey Spring 2005
  9. [ix] Office of National Statistics, Labour Force Survey, spring 2005
  10. [x] DWP, December 2004
  11. [xi] Employers Forum on Disability Survey, 2006