The Australian CFO's Microsoft 365 Copilot business case: a 1-page renewal pack

By the time a Microsoft 365 Copilot renewal lands on the CFO's desk, most of the conversation has already been had between IT and finance. The question the CFO is really being asked at renewal isn't 'is Copilot a good idea?' — it's 'is the current seat count and SKU mix the right shape for what we're getting?' The business case template below is the one-pager Frontrow uses to focus the conversation on that question. It's intentionally short. Long business cases for marginal renewal decisions are an anti-pattern; they get skim-read and the decision defaults to renew-as-is.

The one-page renewal pack — five sections

1. Seat utilisation summary (3-4 lines)

• Total licensed seats: [X]. Annual cost at current pricing: [AUD $Y].
• Weekly active users (90-day average): [X] (Z%).
• Inactive seats over 30 days: [X] (W%). Already reassigned / removed: [X].

2. ROI by role (the table)

Per role, list: number of active seats, top use cases, estimated hours saved per user per week (from Viva Insights focus time delta or champion survey), implied annual saving at the role's loaded cost. Round all numbers. Five rows maximum.

3. The top three observed wins (3-4 lines)

Three specific examples of measurable productivity gains the team has identified, named by role and use case. 'Finance team monthly reporting cycle compressed from 5 days to 3.5 days' is the right shape. 'Productivity improved across the board' is not.

4. The honest costs (2-3 lines)

Tenant readiness work needed for next year: sensitivity labels, oversharing remediation, training spend. CFOs distrust business cases that hide the implementation cost. The honesty earns credibility.

5. The recommendation (one sentence)

Exactly one of: reduce seats from [X] to [Y]; maintain at [X]; or expand from [X] to [Z] to cover [specific roles]. With a one-sentence justification. The recommendation must include the seat count, not just the strategic direction.

What good looks like — a worked example

Frontrow worked with a 600-staff AU professional services firm running 200 Copilot seats. The first renewal review surfaced: 47 inactive seats reclaimed pre-renewal (saved AUD $30,000), 30 expanded into the next year for finance and operations roles where the ROI was clearest, 50 seats reduced from heavy users to expand-when-ready pool. Net seat count: 180. Net cost change: 10% lower than auto-renew. Net active adoption: up from 38% to 71% weekly active. The CFO signed off because the numbers were specific and the recommendation was actionable.

What bad looks like — the anti-pattern

The most common bad business case Frontrow sees is the one with five paragraphs of qualitative claims, no seat count recommendation, and a 'request to renew as-is' bottom line. This reliably leads to either an auto-renew nobody is confident in, or a renewal cancellation driven by frustration. Neither outcome is good for the organisation or for Copilot adoption. A 1-page pack with a specific seat-count recommendation, even if the seat count is the same as last year, drives a better conversation.