Search

Keyword


Filter

Search

Social business case care

Function / Domain: Care
Illustration of: Social business case

As part of the Dutch Long-Term care transition programme, a social business case was developed for a number of experiments. The aim was to identify the costs and benefits of the system innovation so that the innovation could be anchored when the experiment was completed. The social business cases proved to be useful for discussions with politicians, financiers and other stakeholders about anchoring the innovation.

The business cases reflect the cross-domain nature of system innovation and provide an insight into the economic and social usefulness of the new practices. The method and content of the business cases are summarised below.

 Interactive process

Various stakeholders provided input for the social business cases. This interactive approach was to persuade policymakers and potential financiers to become involved in the system innovation and to provide long-term financing.

Once a first draft had been produced, there were a series of intensive discussions of the business case between the innovators, financiers and other stakeholders. During this interactive process, the services, costs, prices and values were compared and the business model and the assumptions were fine-tuned and final choices were made.

Five perspectives

The social business cases for the Long-Term Care programme combined five perspectives into a single, shared cost-benefit analysis. The approach taken to accomplish this is summarised below.

Step 1: Client perspective (CP) This step involves identifying the user's perspective (in this case, the perspective of the clients and carers)

Step 2: Business model (BM) Step 2 involves describing the business model, which is intended to be a mature organisational model. The business model is constructed from the answers to six questions about the new practice  or organisation, including their interrelationships and mutual dependencies:

  • 1. To whom will the experiment in system innovation offer its services (client interface)?
  • 2. What will the innovative practice offer clients (specific products and services)?
  • 3. What specific added value do these services provide? (products and services, based on interviews, etc.)
  • 4. How will these services reach the client (client interface)?
  • 5. What is the relationship between the product and the clients with the segments (client interface)?
  • 6. How will the services be provided to the clients (infrastructure)?

Step 3: Organisational aspects In step 3, the organisational aspects and the social aspects of the business model (denoted in the diagram as the Organisational Case and the Social Case) are studied. During this stage of the process, the minimum basic requirements of the business model in terms of capacities, clients and personnel are translated into a cost-benefit analysis of the organisational model. The four relevant questions are:

  • 1. What are the most important activities for creating value?
  • 2. What are the most important capacities?
  • 3. How will the partner network be used?
  • 4. What are the potential revenues in each segment?

The social case requires a stakeholder analysis and an impact map, as well as insight into the qualitative, and if possible quantitative, social benefits.

Step 4: Commercial and social usefulness In this step the stakeholders summarise the commercial and social usefulness of the business model and analyse how to fill in gaps in the social benefit. The stakeholders then draw conclusions about the viability, success factors and risks of the system innovation and make recommendations for future financing.

Sources

(in Dutch)

Back
Print