The Scenario
The CEO has mandated zero-based budgeting (ZBB) for all departments. Instead of starting from last year's budget and adjusting, every team must justify every rand from zero. The IT department (R8M annual spend) must go through this exercise.
The Brief
Conduct a ZBB exercise for the IT department. List every expense, rank them by business criticality, and identify which items you would cut if forced to reduce the budget by 20%.
Deliverables
- A complete expense inventory with each item justified from zero (not "we spent this last year")
- A priority ranking: Critical (business stops without it), Important (degraded service), Nice-to-Have (efficiency gains)
- A 20% cut scenario showing which items you would eliminate and the business impact of each cut
- One expense that looks like a cut candidate but should actually be increased, with justification
Submission Guidance
ZBB is not about cutting costs. It is about justifying costs. Some line items will be higher than last year if the justification is strong enough.
Submit Your Work
Your submission is graded against the rubric on the right. If you pass, you get a public Badge URL you can share on LinkedIn. There is no draft save, so work offline first and paste your finished response here.