Although in many cases, a recommendation would encompass a series of activities to enable an increase in a solution's performance, this may not always be the case. In some cases, the business analyst may decide not to do anything different or to potentially change or adjust external aspects that may impact the performance of a solution instead of changing the solution itself. In other cases, all that might be required is a simple change in the expectations of stakeholders in terms of business value goals for this solution.

In the following list, you will find some common examples of recommendations that a business analyst may propose: 

• Do nothing: This option is the most likely recommendation when the value of a change is relatively small in relation to the effort it will take to make the change. It is also often the recommendation that is proposed when the risks associated with making a change outweigh the potential increase in value derived from the change.
• Organizational change: This type of recommendation is about proposing changes to the organizational culture in terms of attitudes, perceptions of the solution, or participation levels to ensure that the solution is successful. Although much of this work will be undertaken by the change management function, it is often the business analyst who will provide input into potential organizational structural changes or any changes to job functions to help achieve maximum business benefit.
• Reduce the complexity of interfaces: This recommendation is about reducing the complexity of interfaces between systems or people.
• Eliminate redundancy: This recommendation is about highlighting the different stakeholder groups that may have common business needs and requirements, and that these can be met with a single solution. This can, therefore, reduce the cost of implementation and, in turn, contribute to the overall business value that is gained.
• Avoid waste: This type of recommendation aims to avoid unnecessary activities that don't add any value.
• Identify additional capabilities: This is when the business analyst recommends a solution option that may offer additional capabilities to the organization above and beyond those identified in the requirements. These capabilities may not be of immediate value to the organization, but they do have the potential to provide future value—for example, a software application may have features that the organization anticipates using in the future. 
• Retire the solution: Another recommendation might be to get rid of the existing solution and completely replace it with a better more value-adding solution or solution component. This may be needed because the existing technology has reached the end of its life, the business processes are being outsourced, or the solution is simply not keeping up with business goals and cannot fulfill the needs of the organization any longer. 

There are some more factors that may impact the decision regarding the replacement or retirement of a solution. These include the following considerations: 

• What is the ongoing cost versus the initial investment? Often, an existing solution might have increased maintenance costs over a period of time, while some other more modern alternatives might have a higher initial investment cost but lower long-term maintenance costs. In a real-world scenario, we might see older mainframe solutions in some banks that have very high maintenance costs because of additional challenges, such as the fact that very few professionals have the skills to support these technology solutions and require really high service fees. Such systems are also very inflexible, limiting the number and degree of changes that are made to them.
• Opportunity cost: The opportunity cost factor represents the potential value that could be realized when pursuing an alternative course of action—for example, it might be more beneficial to purchase a tried and tested timesheet system than building a custom solution in house.
• Necessity: This factor considers whether a solution is still fulfilling a function that is necessary. In most situations, a solution has a limited lifespan (because of obsolescence, changing market conditions, and other factors). After a certain point in the life cycle of a solution, it will become impractical or impossible to maintain the existing component and a recommendation might be to replace a solution. For example, say that a government has always required certain business tax reports to be submitted through a manual process each month. Should the government streamline and automate its system, then this process will no longer be required, making the bulk printing of these reports redundant and obsolete.
• Sunken cost: The last type of factor to consider with these recommendations are sunk costs. This refers to the money and effort already committed to an initiative, which often leads stakeholders to feel like they should keep implementing a solution because so much money, time, and effort has already been invested. This type of situation affects objectivity and often affects the decision making process when considering future investment and identifying the future benefits that can realistically be gained.