IT Investment: Making a Business Case
Shows how to present an IT project s expenses in terms of an investment in business practices and processes.
TABLE OF CONTENTS IT Investment: Making a Business Case
Chapter 10: Evaluating a business case
The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.
(Keynes 1936).
Customer-intimate companies know their customers don't buy a product or a service. They buy its benefits.
Wiersema (1996)
10.1 Introduction
As the twenty-first century approaches, investment in IT is of increasing importance to business and other organisations. This is for a number of reasons including the fact that information is playing a greater and greater role in many organisations. This has been well illustrated by Drucker when he said:
We will have to learn, before understanding any task, to first ask the question, 'What information do I need, and in what form, and when?' The next question people have to learn to ask is 'To whom do I own which information and when and where'. (Drucker 1997)
It is not a simple matter, however, to successfully implement IT investments. Peters refers to this when he says:
Information Technology is a major enabler. But there's lots, lots more to the story. (Peters 1992)
Consequently it is important to thoroughly understand the new processes and the business outcomes which will be supported by the proposed IT investment and this is best achieved by preparing a comprehensive IT business case.
10.2 The preparation of...
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