Blog · Wallet share and penetration
Build a review-specific business case from quoted costs, internal effort and realized incremental contribution. Separate scenario upside from evidence and cash costs from staff time.
A share-of-wallet review business case should state what the business must earn to justify the work, rather than multiply every identified gap by an optimistic conversion rate. The buyer is deciding whether a bounded analysis and follow-up effort are worth their cost. A clear break-even calculation helps make that decision without claiming a guaranteed return.
The gap-valuation guide owns estimating opportunity size. This guide starts with a proposed review and asks what realized result would cover its incremental investment.
Name the account population, question, deliverables, internal owner and review period. A useful scope could be choosing twenty eligible expansion accounts and documenting their evidence. It should not promise access to every customer's competitor spend.
Define whether the economic result will be evaluated over a quarter or a year. Separate orders, invoiced revenue, cash collection and contribution. An annual recurring contract signed during the quarter is not automatically a year's realized contribution during that same quarter.
List the baseline activity that would happen without the review. Existing account-manager calls and already scheduled renewals belong in that counterfactual, so their outcomes are not automatically credited to the new analysis.
Use the actual scope and quote when available. Keep external analysis cost, internal data preparation, account review time, pursuit activity and any new delivery setup visible. Distinguish incremental cash spending from an assigned value for employees' existing hours.
Avoid double counting pursuit labor in both the review cost and the contribution margin. State whether margin is after variable product, fulfillment, commission and incremental service costs. The cost-to-serve guide can support a more complete account-level assessment.
For a short evaluation, this planning identity is useful:
Break-even incremental revenue = evaluation cost / incremental contribution margin
The Small Business Administration explains the underlying contribution-margin break-even calculation. The review-specific cost allocation below is an original illustration.
These figures are invented planning inputs. They are not Covirage prices, an offer, customer results or an industry benchmark.
| Input | Hypothetical calculation | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| External review budget | Stated planning assumption | $2,500 |
| Internal preparation and review | 20 hours × $75 | $1,500 |
| Additional pursuit effort | 10 hours × $75 | $750 |
| Full economic evaluation cost | Sum of the three rows | $4,750 |
At an assumed 25% incremental contribution margin, full economic break-even is $4,750 / 25% = $19,000 of incremental revenue realized in the selected period. If only the $2,500 external payment is incremental cash, the narrower cash-cost break-even is $10,000. Label both; they answer different questions.
| Incremental realized revenue | Contribution at 25% | Less full evaluation cost | Net contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| $10,000 | $2,500 | $4,750 | −$2,250 |
| $20,000 | $5,000 | $4,750 | $250 |
| $40,000 | $10,000 | $4,750 | $5,250 |
These scenarios are conditional arithmetic, not forecasts. The table does not establish how likely any result is. At a 20% margin, full break-even rises to $23,750; at 30%, it falls to approximately $15,833. Margin quality can matter as much as the size of the opportunity list.
Microsoft's scenario documentation describes comparing alternative input sets. Keep a zero-growth case in the review as well as the attractive scenario.
Specify what the analysis must establish even if no immediate sale occurs: reconciled input totals, usable account identities, source-labeled wallets, a reviewed candidate list and known limitations. Decide separately how subsequent commercial outcomes will be evaluated.
Use an account-growth experiment where practical to distinguish intervention effects from ordinary renewal, seasonality and price movement. Avoid attributing every order from a pursued account to the analysis.
Finish with a small decision sheet: scope, cash cost, staff commitment, break-even assumptions, downside case, owner and stop/review date. Confirm eligibility and selling capacity using the priority guide.
Discuss the question and a representative sample with Covirage. Agree the required output and service scope before using the business case; identified gaps alone do not substantiate a revenue or ROI promise.
Before funding a review, decide whether the question needs a one-time engagement or recurring work, and what a setup fee must deliver.
No. They describe category spend you do not hold under the stated wallet assumptions. A return claim requires incremental realized contribution, attribution evidence and the costs of the review and subsequent activity.
Separate incremental cash payments from the value assigned to existing employee time. Both can matter to the decision, but existing salaries do not automatically become new cash outflows when staff perform a review.